Thomas de Grenier de Latour posted
<20041112152916.348abb9e.degrenier@...>, excerpted below,  on
Fri, 12 Nov 2004 15:29:16 +0100:

> On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 22:20:29 +0900
> Jason Stubbs <jstubbs@g.o> wrote:
> 
>> emerge --pretend will always show what emerge is going to do.
> 
> Sure, but you know how users are.[] I agree that your approach is the
> right thing to do from a reasonable semantics point of view, but from a
> user point of view it will probably look different.
>   That said, this problem can also be solved by some cosmetic
> means, like adding a big warning of that kind:
>  * gcc will have to be emerged twice because you lack the fortran * USE
>  flag, so if that is a problem for you, then add this flag * and you'll
>  be fine. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

OK, I'm one of those "users".  Read that as sysadmin of a Gentoo system.
Sysadmin carries some responsibility for knowing how the system is set up,
particularly as it pertains to security issues.  I don't take that
responsibility lightly, nor would I expect anyone to seriously recommend
that I do so.

I would **NOT** appreciate portage taking upon ITSELF to CHANGE my USE
flags behind my back!!!  Count this as one vote for emerge-stopping
errors, NOT warnings that may or may not be seen in the middle of a string
of emerges.  Yes, I use pretend (or more generally, ask), and would
normally catch a repeated emerge there.  However, I still don't want use
flags being changed out from under me.

Of course, as already mentioned repeatedly, having a depend resolution
time failure would be better than EITHER that warning or failure after a
string of depends have been merged.  I agree there (what's not to agree
with?).  However, regardless of whether that's possible, if a use flag
needs changed, I want an error spit out to that effect, so **I** get to
decide whether to change it or try some other package that doesn't require
changes in my use flags.  I do NOT want it simply changed, at the whim of
portage, regardless of whether there's a big warning before it happens. 
If a use flag needs changed, *I* want to be the one changing it, on *MY*
system.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --
Benjamin Franklin



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