[gentoo-dev] The KDE overlay moves forward

[Wulf C. Krueger]

Hello, fellow devs!

As you might know, the Gentoo KDE project provides an overlay with KDE4 
live ebuilds ("kde" in layman) and some of their dependencies.

For quite some time now, our progress has been impaired by the absence of 
features like USE dependencies, ranged dependencies and suggested 
dependencies.

Most of us who are working on the overlay have been using alternative 
package managers (PM) for quite some time now. Thus, the idea arose to go 
a step further and actually make good use of the capabilities they offer 
us. 

In the end, we chose to use Paludis and discussed the possibilities of a 
new, stable EAPI for our overlay with Ciaran McCreesh who kindly agreed 
to help us with that. (Thank you, Ciaran!)

Ciaran will submit a patch for PMS that enables the ability to 
*optionally* build it with kdebuild-1 documented. Thus, we will support 
any package manager that implements this EAPI.

This new EAPI, "kdebuild-1", consists of the following features (in 
addition to EAPI 1):

- "-scm" support (GLEP 54)
- new .kdebuild-1 suffix (basically GLEP 55)
- USE dependencies, including some special operators
- ranged dependencies
- :* and := slot dependencies
- src_uri arrows
- src_test is now mandatory (unless RESTRICT'ed)
- no implicit mkdir for doins
- no dohtml, dohard and dosed. 
- no old-style virtuals (i. e. no "PROVIDE")
- pkg_info on not installed packages
- src_uri labels
- PDEPEND "suggested:" label

You'll find all the details in the following local copy of PMS with the 
kdebuild-1 patch applied: http://www.mailstation.de/pms.pdf

For starters, we'll be using the new EAPI for live ebuilds (${PV}=-scm) 
only, so that users of other PMs will be able to use the rest of the 
overlay as before. That's exactly what the kdebuild-1 EAPI was designed 
to allow for.

For users of the KDE overlay's live ebuilds the new EAPI currently means 
they will have to use Paludis but there are rumours ;) other PMs are 
interested as well. That's the main reason to optionally include it in 
PMS.

For those of us working on the overlay this means we will be able to use 
exciting new features and hopefully make our lives easier.

For Gentoo as a whole this means there's plenty of opportunity to try new 
stuff and learn from the experiences.

-- 
Best regards, Wulf
(Gentoo KDE Project lead)