Re: [gentoo-amd64] kdepimlibs requiring -kdeprefix?

[Marcus D. Hanwell]

On Wednesday 07 January 2009 16:37:41 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> On Mittwoch 07 Januar 2009, Marcus D. Hanwell wrote:
> > On Wednesday 07 January 2009 10:17:56 Mark Haney wrote:
> > > Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > > > On Mittwoch 07 Januar 2009, Mark Haney wrote:
> > > >> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > > >>> with kdeprefix everything lands in /usr/kde/<version> which is cool
> > > >>> and usefull
> > > >>>
> > > >>> without kdeprefix everything ends in /usr which is stupid and hurts
> > > >>> you if you want to try different kde versions - or have several
> > > >>> versions installed so you can always go back easily when the newest
> > > >>> one breaks. But it is FHS compliant.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> At the beginning gentoo was 'screw stupid standards, do the
> > > >>> sensible thing' - but in the mean time the 'if there is a standard
> > > >>> we have to adhere to it no matter how idiotic' crowd has got way to
> > > >>> much power.
> >
> > I am apparently part of this crowd, but what you are saying seems to have
> > a large amount of your opinion with a sprinkling of fact. Almost all
> > other packages install into /usr and it is in fact a Gentoo policy that
> > packages install into /usr and follow FHS where practical. This has been
> > a policy for many years...
> >
> > Upstream does not support installing into prefixes and this has in fact
> > made KDE difficult to support in the past, and has led to Gentoo specific
> > bugs along with issues linking to the right libs etc...
>
> kde was once installed into /opt so it wouldn't clutter /usr - which I
> always liked in the past. KDE didn't clutter /usr like gnome does. That
> made it easy to find and change everything/something belonging to kde. So
> when I arrived at gentoo and saw kde going to /usr/kde I was a happy
> camper.
>
> At the moment I am using the live ebuilds - and it saved my ass several
> times, that I can make an easy backup of it (just tar it up) before the
> next upgrade. Same for the 4.1.8X versions. Heck, in the past, I backed up
> 3.5 before every version upgrade too, just in case - and it was a good
> thing to do so.
>
> Why adhere to a standard that *increases* clutter and makes it harder to
> have several versions of an app installed?

Because it makes KDE easier to maintain, it is the most widely tested way of 
installing KDE and the way upstream intended. You still have the option of 
using the kdeprefix if you wish to do so. For the normal user I totally 
believe that the -kdeprefix install is the best thing for them.

Consider a typical situation where a user installs KDE 3.3, upgrades to 3.4, 
upgrades again to 3.5. Each time they install in a new slot and KDE eats up 
more and more disk space. The odd application still links to some of the older 
kdelibs that are no longer maintained. They recompile KDE 3.4.4 and 3.5.1 in 
an upgrade as they were both bumped but they only use the latest one.

Consider the packaging issues associated with maintaining what are effectively 
multiple chroots that are very leaky... Consider we are volunteers and 
basically just want to get KDE working well. There are users like you who like 
tarring. You can just as easily make binary packages of installed KDE apps and 
quickly move back and forth that way.

I see no point in having an extended discussion as I am honestly really busy 
right now preparing for Camp KDE, doing my day job and trying to ensure 4.2 is 
ready to hit the tree... These are some of the motivations behind the moves, 
if you disagree then fair enough. Until you are willing to maintain the KDE 
ebuilds then I think what we have is a reasonable compromise.

Personally I think it would be a lot simpler for users and us to only have -
kdeprefix in portage, and maintain live/snapshots that can install into 
kdeprefixes. I myself maintain a stable installed in /usr/ and a live tree in 
/usr/kde/live...

If you look at the options in other distros you will see we offer a lot of 
flexibility but it comes at a price. Gentoo does have policies on installation 
locations and /opt for example is only for binaries not compiled by Gentoo... 
/usr is where most packages should go. The developer docs have the details and 
have not changed very much in the time I have been a dev.