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On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 14:22 -0800, Anthony Gorecki wrote: |
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> On Monday, October 31, 2005 13:09, Chris Gianelloni wrote: |
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> > 2. Inform users that only stage3 will be supported |
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> > 3. Change the documentation to recommend users not change USE flags |
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> > until after the completion of "emerge -e system" |
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> |
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> These two options seem to be the most reasonable. If a user doesn't know how |
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> to deploy a system using stage one or two, they should either be instructed |
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> to use stage three, or be given alternate (more cautious) instructions for |
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> the earlier stages. If, on the other hand, the person is familiar with the |
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> inner workings of Gentoo and its packages, they would be likely to ignore the |
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> instructions anyway. |
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We also get bug reports from users using genkernel to build their own |
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CDs using --unionfs-dev, which we don't even list anywhere in the |
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documentation because we know it is broken and it says as much when you |
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use it. |
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The plain and simple truth is that if we allow it *at all* then we will |
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be held responsible for what happens when a user tries to use it, |
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whether they have fore-knowledge of the brokenness or not. |
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> > In pretty much every case, the real answer is "quit using stage1 if you |
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> > don't know what you're doing" but unfortunately, we're going to get the |
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> > pointless "but Gentoo is about choice" "argument" that really has no |
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> > bearing on the truth of what is Gentoo. |
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> |
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> I agree. A section of documentation could be created to explain that concept, |
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> and bugs that were filed as a result of inexperience could then be closed and |
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> redirected to the documentation. |
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I am currently working to have a <warn> section added to the Handbook |
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stating that we highly recommend that users not touch stages 1 or 2. |
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> I use USE="-*" in make.conf for all of my deployments because I don't want the |
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> system's USE flags to be modified by Gentoo developers; I also don't have any |
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> difficulty deploying such systems. Unfortunately, I see many individuals that |
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> will leap to configure their systems in ways that cannot be maintained. In |
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> those cases, the Gentoo developers should not be the ones to correct the |
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> errors. |
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I agree. |
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On the other side of the coin, it is exactly *because* of -* that we |
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have such hacks like nocxx in USE. USE flags are designed for enabling |
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optional support. We should not have no* USE flags. While I personally |
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don't really care either way, it is something that we are currently |
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*required* to do because we have no way to ensure that it will be |
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enabled by default, thanks to -*. Funny enough, I use -* for the same |
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reason as you, but then came to find out about auto-use, and am now glad |
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that I've always used -* myself. ;] |
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-- |
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Chris Gianelloni |
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Release Engineering - Strategic Lead |
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x86 Architecture Team |
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Games - Developer |
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Gentoo Linux |
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