Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Interaction in ebuilds - bad idea?

[Stuart Herbert]

On Friday 30 April 2004 22:06, Ryan Phillips wrote:
> I think this is a really good idea.  The ebuild config mechanism is
> not all that smart.

Let's try and make it smarter.

For example, if we absolutely *have* to ask the user for some information for 
an ebuild - if there's no way to script it (and I think there is) - let's 
make Portage ask all the questions *before* downloading and compiling 
anything.  It makes sense to ask all the questions up-front, so that the user 
doesn't constantly have to check his 'emerge -u world' to see if it has 
stopped to ask a question.

Imagine running, for an example, 'emerge -u world'.  Once Portage has 
calculated the dependencies, it could call a function (let's call it 
pkg_askuser) in each ebuild to gather further information.  pkg_askuser would 
need some library functions to call, so that we can standardise the user's 
experience.  Portage would have to cache the information gathered by 
pkg_askuser, and then it could continue with running each ebuild in turn 
exactly as it currently does.  Each ebuild would have access to the cache 
(how doesn't matter yet), so that it can use the right database server, the 
right user and password, or whatever that information needs to be.

The cache itself can be reused in future - so that the user doesn't have to 
type in the same information the next time he does an 'emerge -u world'.  We 
could store the cache inside the profile, for example.  Just as we have a 
use.desc file to explain what each USE flag does, we could add a cache.desc 
file to explain what each value in the cache is for.

We could even provide a tool to edit the cache - and hey presto - without that 
much effort we've just made ebuilds a lot smarter, and Gentoo an even better 
platform.

> Since, there is work on an installer there should
> be some mechanism for the installer to query an "install specification
> file" per package.

Isn't the installer's role to perform that initial install onto virgin 
hardware?  Will the installer really play a role in the day to day 
maintenance of a Gentoo box?

> Something like an installshield script,

urgh, please no ;-)

Besides, we already have something like that - the ebuilds themselves.

> but it
> needs to export configuration items (ie: parameters, possible values,
> etc).  The interface should be generic enough so that any type of
> configuration utility (GUI, console, or non-interactive) can run the
> configuration.

dialog and xdialog would be a good starting point.  Although personally I'd 
throw dialog out of the window, and use lxdialog from the kernel instead ;-)

> Depending on the time frame... I may be able to help out on this.
> Graduation from college is at the end of this year (I hope :).

If the Portage team could add the pkg_askuser() and the cache, then any ebuild 
maintainer could start taking advantage very quickly.  Anyone from the 
Portage team care to comment on this idea?

Best regards,
Stu
-- 
Stuart Herbert                                              stuart@g.o
Gentoo Developer                                       http://www.gentoo.org/
Missed the php|cruise?             http://dev.gentoo.org/~stuart/cruise-2004/

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