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

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Mittwoch 07 Januar 2009, Marcus D. Hanwell wrote:
> 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.

it only eats 'more space' ones - when creating 3.5 parallel to 3.4. 

And if you install directly into /usr you STILL have to recompile the odd app, 
because it will be broken anyway after the update. So nothing one with an 
installation directly into /usr. Just a lot lost.

>
> 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.

it is way easier to rm&untar one directoy, than to have to hunt down 213 
binary packages.

>
> 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...

so if you want to install 4.1 and 4.2 at the same time (because 4.2 will 
certainly be troublesome until .2 or .3) you are screwed?

http://marc.info/?l=gentoo-dev&m=123108542712650&w=2

"   - decide if we should provide +kdeprefix for stable releases and 
snapshots"

sounds bad ... 'if' for snapshots... ? bad, bad.