Re: [gentoo-dev] rfc: "emerge --sync" vs "emaint sync"

[Brian Dolbec]

On Wed, 6 May 2020 17:02:42 -0500
William Hubbs <williamh@g.o> wrote:

> All,
>
> I know that most of our documentation tells people to use "emerge
> --sync"; however, today I heard about "emaint sync" for the first
> time.  ;-)
>
> Which one should we use? Will there be a phase-out for "emerge
> --sync" or "emaint sync"? Are the plans to keep both available?
>
> Thanks,
>
> William
>

Hi William.   emaint --sync is not going to replace emerge --sync.
They both use the same plugin sync modules.

The difference between them is that emerge --sync is generally done to
sync all repositories defined which have [auto-sync] = yes.  Zac
extended it to do individual repositories as well if you specify the
repo name.   

ie: emerge --sync foo

emaint --sync offers fine grained syncing of individual repositories
via several options. With emaint you can set a repo's [auto-sync] = no
and still manually sync it on demand from emaint. It offers some
additional capabilities that some power users/devs may need/enjoy
depending on their work flow.

Here are the emaint sync options:

  -r REPO, --repo REPO  (sync module only): -r, --repo Sync the specified repo
  -A, --allrepos        (sync module only): -A, --allrepos Sync all repos that
                        have a sync-url defined
  -a, --auto            (sync module only): -a, --auto Sync auto-sync enabled
                        repos only
  --sync-submodule {glsa,news,profiles}
                        (sync module only): Restrict sync to the specified
                        submodule(s)

ie: emaint sync -r foo -r bar


The --sync-submodule option was added for developers working from the
git tree with the other git tree submodules added the the base gentoo
git ebuild tree.  In our case the profiles did end up as part of the
main ebuild tree.  But you can add the glsa and news git repos to the
git ebuild tree in order to make a complete repository.  

NOTE: the above pertains to the developer git tree, not the anonymous
git tree.  That git repo has had the glsa and news repos added to it
for general consumption.