Re: [gentoo-dev] News item for eudev deprecation

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 10:36 AM Ulrich Mueller <ulm@g.o> wrote:
>
> >>>>> On Mon, 23 Aug 2021, Anthony G Basile wrote:
>
> >>> **WARNING**
> >>>
> >>> If you happen to have an INSTALL_MASK with a blanket "*systemd*"
> >>> glob, you will inevitably break your system. sys-fs/udev contains
> >>> "systemd" in some of its filenames, hence a blanket filter rule will
> >>> likely lead to a non-functional udev installation.
> >>
> >> Will an INSTALL_MASK of "/usr/lib/systemd /etc/systemd" cause any
> >> issues?
>
> > I have not tested, but I think so since "systemd-" is used as a prefix
> > for files installed by sys-fs/udev.
>
> So, we've abandoned the systemd USE flag, and I remember that one of
> the arguments was that users could use INSTALL_MASK for precisely the
> above mentioned directories.

Well, the argument is that we don't use USE flags to prevent packages
from installing small text files.  It is the same reason we don't have
an openrc USE flag to control installing init.d scripts.  We're now
talking about pretty far back in history but I think this was a
general guideline before systemd even came along.

> Now the message is that users' systems will be broken if they had
> followed our previous advice? Seriously?

Did we ever officially advise people to use INSTALL_MASK at all?  I
thought that was mostly a "you can keep the pieces if you break
things" option we provide.  IMO the risks of people misusing it are
far greater than the possible harm of having a few hundred small text
files installed on their system, but it is there if people really want
to use it.

However, having used the option in the past shouldn't hurt anybody.
It only impacts people if they use it when they install udev, hence
the news item.

-- 
Rich