Re: [gentoo-dev] Portage: good news and bad news

[Terje Kvernes]

"Chad M. Huneycutt" <chad.huneycutt@×××.org> writes:

> Terje Kvernes wrote:
>
> > hm. I haven't seen repoman before, seems nice.  also, somone[tm]
> > introduced the "mirror://sourceforge"-syntax.  when was this done?
>
> It has been in since around May.  I think when sourceforge changed
> all their URL's for http downloads, drobbins threw it in to address
> that.

  that makes sense.  it was just that I haven't seen an announcement
  on the topic.  it might be me though.  ;-)

> There is a file /usr/portage/thirdpartymirrors where you can set up
> other mirrors.

  ITYM /usr/portage/profiles/thirdpartymirrors.  but thanks for the
  pointer.  it was a rather cute detail though, even if some of my
  ebuilds broke.  no, they're not submitted.  I'm still having issues
  with ggz-kde-stuff.  this time it's sandbox-related.  more sed to
  come it seems.  *sigh*
 
> > I am trying to contribute ebuilds and fiddle with portage, but
> > there doesn't seem to be to much information about internal
> > changes coming down from gentoo-core.  I've been trying to get the
> > internals of portage into my head, but changes happen and I'm not
> > totally sure what ends those changes are about, hence it is
> > difficult to really contribute.
>
> Daniel does most of the portage hacking, and he does quite a lot.
> He has been making some major tweaks with the code lately (if you
> hadn't noticed),

  I've noticed.  it has effectively kept me from doing anything with
  portage for a while.  sadly enough.  I'd like to see where the
  stability levels are going, also I really miss a reason for ebuild
  updates in the ebuild itself.  but I've ranted about this before,
  and noone seems to care.

> and he does keep track of the major changes in the portage
> Changelog.

  my problem with portage right now is that I want to understand the
  code and the intent of the code.  I'm going to try again to produce
  a map of portage to see what really happens.  documentation with
  regards to the development of portage isn't the best thing about
  it.  but of course, it's better to have a fix, then to document the
  problem.  

> Well, it looks like you have to look in the gentoo-src tree to see
> the "real" portage Changelog.  If you don't want to check it out of
> CVS, you can look at it here:
>
> http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/gentoo-src/portage/

  thanks.  I was sort of more hoping for some abstracts of portage
  itself.  how does things get called, why, what modules exist for
  what reason etc.  maybe I'll try producing something like that for
  myself as I dig in the code.
 
> As to gentoo-core, we are working on defining exactly what should
> and should not go on there.  It is mainly developer introductions
> and pre-discussions about various issues that will either be shot
> down or opened up to gentoo-dev once they have matured a little.

  my apologies, I'm just the curious guy with a bit too much time on
  my hands now and then.  things are obviously happening.  I just feel
  that now and then it comes as an "this is now done"-announcement,
  before anyone outside the core team knew about the start of the
  project.  for good or bad.  ;-)

  but please, don't take this as a criticism of the way Gentoo is
  being run.  I'm just very scared by some ideas that have come around
  -- like separate portage trees for stable / unstable release.

  the way one implements stability levels is something I care a good
  deal about, because I really don't want Gentoo to become
  "debian-by-source".  we can do so much better.

  I've ranted about my views on stability levels and ebuild update
  comments on this list before, so I'll leave it at that.  if anyone
  wants another recap I'll be happy to produce it whatever media is
  desired.

-- 
Terje - a very happy, but slightly worried, Gentooer.