[gentoo-amd64] Re: Heads-up: KDEers: Particularly kde3-ers,

[Duncan]

Mark Knecht posted on Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:56:25 -0700 as excerpted:

> We need better tools for creating and maintaining personal overlays.

I'd like to explore that comment a bit, but below...

> Here is my story.
>
> Support for old hardware has been one of the downfalls of the devs
> deciding to not keep everything in portage but rather they start weeding
> out software before we users have really finished using it. I have 4
> [old but special machines I use] as MythTV frontends.

> At the time I bought the machines the Open Source radeon driver didn't
> support S-Video so I had to use the ATI driver which worked fine.

When I first switched to Linux, I was in much the same boat.  While I had 
been researching a switch for a couple years, and had therefore verified 
that all my hardware purchases "did Linux", I wasn't yet aware of the 
difference between "Linux drivers" and "freedomware Linux driver".  I had 
thus verified that my nVidia card with "Twinview", one of the reasons I 
purchased it, did "Twinview" on Linux as well, but unfortunately didn't 
know to verify that the FLOSS drivers handled it.  Of course, the open 
source nv driver doesn't, due to lack of vendor cooperation.

Shortly after I actually /did/ switched to Linux and discovered all that, 
I vowed that while I couldn't at the time do anything about the video 
card I was running (no budget for a new one), that was the LAST time I 
would make that mistake!

And it was the last time I DID.  My cards since then have all been 
Radeons, and I've only purchased ones well supported by the freedomware 
drivers, which is why I'm still on a 9200, as that was the best 
freedomware supported for quite awhile, until AMD bought ATI and turned 
them around in that regard.

FWIW, I expect to upgrade video again shortly, I've had it penciled in 
for 2H2009 for awhile and that's what it is now.  It'll be to another 
Radeon of course, as with AMD at the helm, that is again the best 
freedomware choice.  As I'm still AGP, and the hdXXXX series (r6XX+) do 
better on PCI-E, I'll probably get the top of the line r5XX series, the 
x1950, altho I'd much prefer $100 to the $150 it still seems to be 
running.

> A couple of years ago ATI, in all wisdom, dropped TV Out support for
> this specific chipset from their closed source driver so I was forced to
> stick with the driver that was current at that time.

Yeah.  Well, as you note below, at least the freedomware drivers are 
picking up support for it now.

> This was OK for awhile as it was in portage and I could just mask
> higher revisions. However after awhile it turned out kernel updates
> forced incompatibilities between new kernels and this old driver so I
> was forced to mask newer revisions than the last one that worked with
> the last radeon driver that worked.

Yeah, that happens.  Expecially when you're running servantware drivers 
for hardware they've quit supporting.

> 3 months go by and portage maintainers decide to start weeding 'old'
> software out and, you guessed it, they weeded out what I needed to run
> this hardware.

Just a minor term correction.  As the term is normally used, "portage 
maintainers" would refer to those maintaining the portage package.

What you want would be something like "Gentoo devs" or "Gentoo tree 
maintainers", or here, it would have been the "package maintainers" for 
the packages in question, since newer versions of the same package 
remain.  If the entire package, all versions, is removed, that's often 
the tree cleaners project, or the devs in charge of the herd the package 
belonged to.  But in that case, there's an established procedure of a 30 
day package-mask and an announcement on the gentoo-dev list, in case 
another dev wishes to rescue it, and to give any users that may still be 
using it time to react, putting it in their overlay or switching to a 
different alternative, before the package is actually removed.  Plus, by 
the time it's removed, it's often dead upstream, abandoned, no longer 
compiling with current gcc and/or against current glibc, open bugs with 
little chance of fixing them, a Gentoo-dev maintainer that's either long 
retired or no longer interested in maintaining the package, etc.

Of course, this whole thread is about how kde3 is heading there, but it 
wouldn't count in this regard since there are newer versions, so it's not 
entire package removal, except for the kde3 packages that don't have kde4 
versions, in which case, yes, they'll go thru the mask and announcement 
for removal process, before final removal.  But one of the big 
differences here vs normal upgrades is that there's a real possibility 
they'll end up masking kde3 before kde4 goes stable, according to the kde 
meeting summary.  Plus, all the various things still keeping people on 
kde3, some of which are why kde4 is /not/ yet stable.

Meanwhile, you didn't do it here, but in general, and it's a habit I've 
had to correct myself as well, also note that what used to be termed the 
"portage tree", that is, the main Gentoo tree, really shouldn't be 
referred to as the portage tree anymore either, as there are other 
package managers (PMs).  For historical reasons, it's also often called 
the gentoo/x86 tree, even tho that isn't really accurate either since 
it's generally scripts for building from source on all archs (as we know 
in the context of this list).  But I guess the original Gentoo folks 
didn't realize that, and created their tree under an x86 subdir.

The most accurate way to refer to the main Gentoo tree, therefore, would 
be just that, or simply the Gentoo tree, or the Gentoo repository, since 
that's it's official name now, as can be seen in profiles/repo_name, 
distinguishing it from other repositories/overlays/trees, including those 
of Gentoo based distributions such as funtoo.

> The ATI driver was gone. The kernel was gone. No
> discussions, no announcements. It was just gone.

As mentioned, it's upto the package maintainer what versions he keeps in 
the tree, and there's no special process necessary when he decides to get 
rid of one, except that ordinarily, they're not supposed to remove the 
highest keyworded (either ~arch or stable) version without consulting 
with the arch team in question.  Of course, that's part of the process 
the kde team is going thru now, warning other devs that kde3 may end up 
masked...

Only if a package is removed entirely does the package removal process 
trigger, masked for 30 days with an announcement on -dev, then a removal 
if no-one has stepped up to maintain it and no other serious overrides.

> A machine I could build and run using a Gentoo 2006 install CD could no
> longer be built and run using a 2008 CD.
>
> Then I'm forced to learn about attics, building overlays, etc. It was a
> mess for a long time.
>
> Recently the Open Source driver has started to support TVOut on this
> version of the Radeon hardware, so I'm now back to using Open Source,
> but video quality is FAR inferior to the ATI driver, although CPU usage
> is far superior so at least with OS I have a quiet machine while
> watching a bad picture.

Well, might be poor solace, but at least you can see the good with the 
bad.

> Moral of the story - don't trust portage to support your machine
> tomorrow just because it works today, and don't expect portage
> maintainers to care. The response you'll get, if you get one at all, is
> 'be a man, create your own overlay, be responsible for your machine, and
> shut up'.

Umm... package maintainers, but that's covered above...

Of course, I'd say another moral is to pick hardware that's FLOSS 
supported from the beginning, if at all possible.  Sometimes it may not 
be, and then one has to decide whether it's worth the negatives to go 
servantware or not.  It's a decision I'd make differently than many here, 
but it /is/ an individual decision.

But, being able to create overlays and the like is one of the features of 
Gentoo, and I'd agree with them in that regard.  However, just because 
it's true, doesn't mean they shouldn't at least provide some pointers to 
documentation on creating an overlay, etc.  After all, it's other humans 
with very real problems of their own they're dealing with, and it's good 
to remember that just as us users need to remember that when we wonder 
why there's no apparent action on our bug.

But that brings us back full circle to what I mentioned above.  As 
someone who has gone thru it as an ordinary user, what /did/ you find 
most difficult about the process of creating your own overlay?  What sort 
of tools are you referring to, that could make the process easier?  I'm 
just a user too, but am perhaps more technical than most, and spend 
enough time on the dev list and etc, that while I didn't find the process 
particularly difficult, and don't really understand what sort of tools 
could have made it much simpler than I found it -- it was just a matter 
of taking the time to do it -- I can't take that as indicative of the 
problems an ordinary user may have.

The reason I'm asking, is that it's just this sort of feedback that devs 
often lack, and if between us and others here who may want to speak up as 
well, if it can be hashed out exactly what is causing the problems, 
perhaps I can present them to somebody who can do something about it.  
After all, it's not like the devs generally go out of their way to make 
things more difficult.  If there's a reasonable way to make the process 
easier, and it's not going to take an unreasonable amount of programming 
to make it so, there's a reasonable chance something can be done about it.

And... I'd not mind being a part of the project and any solution that 
might come of it.  After all, not only might I find it's easier for me 
too, but that's a another way I may be able to make my own contribution 
to this great big community project we call Gentoo, the even bigger one 
that's Linux, and the even BIGGER one that's the FLOSS community and 
projects in general. I may not be a coder, but if I can do something to 
help, I'll certainly give it a try!  =:^)

And of course the same applies to you.  If any changes come out of this, 
you can point to them and say it's because of you!  That's a very nice 
feeling to have! =:^)

(Of course, it's a similar feeling to the one I get as a reward for all 
the work I put into my posts here, when I see folks saying they actually 
find them useful, even to the point of archiving them. =:^)  I remember 
the first time someone mentioned saving my posts, back a very long time 
ago both in years and in changed personal situation, as it was about a 
decade ago, and it was a post I made to the IE4/OE4 beta newsgroups... 
how times have changed indeed, but you should have seen me after reading 
that comment, as I must have been walking about two feet off the ground!  
I know because it took me about a week before my feet touched ground 
again! =:^) That's a VERY powerful reward indeed!  =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman