Re: [gentoo-osx] Current status

[Kito]

On Jul 30, 2005, at 8:12 PM, Hasan Khalil wrote:

>
> On Jul 30, 2005, at 19:21, Philipp Riegger wrote:
>
>
>> My problem always was, i felt a bit uncomfortable with gentoo
>> changing my OS X files.
>>
>
>
>> so i like the fink solution, to have an extra directory, which i
>> can simply remove if i don't like it anymore or that i can simply
>> change my PATH to have an origial OS X environment.
>>
>> Some time ago there was a discussion about those things, which way
>> gentoo-osx should go, what to do and so. What about this
>> discussion? Is the extra directory for gentoo-osx definetly dead
>> and will not be used? Or are the changes to portage that would be
>> neccessary to difficult?
>>
>
> There really wasn't ever any discussion at length as to whether or
> not we would support installing to a separate 'jail', as far as I
> recall -- the decision was always that we would eventually support
> such functionality. The main ongoing discussion is simply on [the
> difficulties of] implementation.
>
> Currently, we support two modes of operation: the default
> 'collision-protect' profile (a strict don't-touch-apple-provided-
> files policy),

Just to be a semantic pain in the ass, / is an apple provided file...  
If you are worried about keeping a pristine OS X environment (read:  
still qualify as a 'supported configuration' for tech support, etc.)  
then installing portage on OS X in any of its current forms is not  
what you should be playing with. Portage installs files in /usr, / 
etc, /System and whereever else ebuild maintainers feel like putting  
stuff, , basically everywhere a 3rd party software vendor should  
never touch. A simple software update could kill your portage  
packages/config files...

> and the 'progressive' profile (a free-for-all overwrite-whatever-
> you-want policy).

the progressive profile is anything but a 'free-for-all'. Its primary  
purpose is setting up the environment required to build the Darwin  
OS. Nothing that gets installed in a default configuration will break  
OS X. I use what are arguably the most demanding apps available for  
OS X(shake, Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro, etc.), and have been for almost  
a year now without any ill side effects from using the progressive  
profile.

> In the future we will support installing everything to some
> location, for example '/opt/gentoo', to provide the best of both
> worlds. In the meanwhile, the default (collision-protect) profile
> sounds like what you're after; Apple-provided files are not allowed
> to be overwritten when this profile is in use (there is a bug open
> on symlinks being overwritten, but that is being taken care of and
> is a fairly isolated situation).

I think Fink and/or DarwinPorts are more what hes after ;)

>
> As of yet, portage is not suited for what we have now termed
> 'pathspec', or 'installing to an alternate prefix', or 'using
> portage as a secondary package manager', etc. Changes are being
> made to portage that will allow for features like this, and should
> be included in the next major release (some months away still).
>

I think above and beyond the technical issues, are the practical  
issues. Gentoo is a linux based distro, sure it has some wacky  
redheaded stepchildren like bsd and macos, but cmon....noone uses  
those. The main problem as I see it, is you have a live tree of some  
~10,000 linux based packages, with a userbase of >100,000 LINUX  
users, a dev team of >350 linux developers...how on earth do you  
convince these linux users and devs that a massively huge project  
like supporting arbitrary install prefixes is worth the trouble,  
especially when it would mostly benefit a sideproject with 3 devs and  
probably only slighty more users?

> The portage team has generally been very happy to receive help, if
> you're interested.

Indeed...just be clear though, portage supporting this is merely the  
first step...it'll take quite along time to get packages in the tree  
that also support this.

--Kito

>
> I hope this clarifies things for you, and everyone else on this list.
>
> --
>
> Hasan Khalil
> eBuild and Porting Co-Lead
> Gentoo for Mac OS X
>
>

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