Re: [gentoo-dev] package.mask handling

[Chad M. Huneycutt]

Robert Coie wrote:
> Is there a good reason for handling package.mask differently from the
> various profiles in /usr/portage/profiles?  IOW, would it be a problem
> to have portage look at /etc/package.mask (for example), which would
> be a symlink to one of several choices in /usr/portage/profiles?  This
> would seem to facilitate separate package masks for different
> architectures, and would allow machines of different architectures to
> more easily share a locally mirrored portage tree.

package.mask actually serves a different purpose than the packages file. 
   package.mask is for blocking packages from all profiles, usually 
because they are unstable, untested, or just plain broken -- in all 
profiles.  The packages file is a fine-grained specification of what 
files are *acceptable* in a profile.  The packages file could take the 
place of the package.mask, but, as Spider pointed out, that would mean 
making entries in all the profiles' packages files to mask out broken 
packages.  Furthermore, Every user can have their own profile (I 
recommend it for the most flexibility in your setup).  In that case, 
package.mask is really necessary to make sure a broken package is not 
merged accidentally.  Think of it this way: package.mask is our 
(Gentoo's) list of packages that *cannot* be installed, even if they are 
in the portage tree.  The packages file is your list of files that *can* 
be installed.

Chad (chadh@g.o)