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Hi, |
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|
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(sorry about last mail, hit send too early) |
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|
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Recently we introduced an important behaviour change into the hotplug package. |
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It used to autoload modules at bootup, now it doesn't - you have to install |
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and use coldplug for that now. |
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|
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We put ewarn messages in the ebuild to warn about this change. We put comments |
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in the hotplug init.d script to warn about this change. I personally did not |
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anticipate it affecting many people (if you are going to load a module on |
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every boot up, why not just build it directly into the kernel). |
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|
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However many users were affected by this. It seems people DO build kernel |
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modules for their core hardware, I still don't understand why but thats beside |
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the point here. Users missed the ewarn messages because hotplug was brought in |
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the middle of updates of other packages (didn't help that there was a GNOME |
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stable release around the same time). They did not see the comments in init.d |
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because they used the "-5" option of etc-update to overwrite all files that |
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they had never edited. We had bug reports and less-than-cooperative users |
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flying in from many angles. |
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|
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I then resorted to posting this with a kernel announcement on the homepage and |
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getting a mention in the GWN. This was probably a bit late, hasn't seemed to |
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help much but has rather got me more negative feedback from users who have |
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gone for a complete reinstall (!? is there another misconception here? do we |
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need to teach users about the "modprobe" command?) and from those who noticed |
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I haven't taken up their (non-practical or impossible) suggestions to |
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resolving this better. |
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|
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My question is, how can we improve this situation? Portage really needs a |
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decent messaging system to convey messages like this. It's in the works, |
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right? It seems long overdue now... |
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Users suggested making the messages appear at the very end of the emerge |
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process ("* X config files in /etc need updating" style), or an etc-update |
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style system where you read messages and dismiss them once you've seen them, |
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or a system which mails you those ewarn messages. |
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I really hope portage will be able to provide functionality something like |
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this soon... |
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|
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In the meantime, could we have handled this better with the resources |
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available to us right now? How have other people coped with similar changes? |
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|
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Thanks, |
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Daniel |
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|
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-- |
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