Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo's problems

[Jonathan Adamczewski]

George Prowse wrote:
> Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
>> On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:19:52 +0000 George Prowse
>> <cokehabit@×××××.com> wrote:
>>> What on earth is going to be a "major visible improvement" to a
>>> command line based package manager that any average Gentoo user is
>>> going to realise? The average user probably only uses a few commands:
>>> emerge -u/p/a/v/--sync/package/world/system and then use
>>> package.keywords/mask/unmask so there are really no fundamental
>>> differences that the average user will notice
>>
>> If you think that that's all a package manager should do, you have a
>> serious lack of imagination. Most users need or would heavily benefit
>> from far more. See http://ciaranm.org/show_post/95 for some modest
>> ideas that have turned out to be useful.
>>
> All well and good (and I agree that those would be nice) but none that
> today's average Gentoo user is going to notice as a "major visible
> improvement". --depclean has improved dramatically so the --uninstall
> will be just another way of doing it.
If the target is "today's average Gentoo user", how about a big 
disclaimer to go with every "emerge -Du world" in the form of "This is a 
list of suggestions.  New versions come with new bugs.  Take some 
responsibility for your system stability and don't upgrade carelessly".  
In fact, "emerge -Du world" should imply --pretend ;) 

(Also, mandate that there be a link to upstream changelogs (or a summary 
thereof) in a packages changelog in portage.  Help users make informed 
decisions about upgrades.  Some devs already do this e.g. joshuabaergen 
for xorg stuff and dsd for gentoo-sources - although I generally have to 
go hunting for those because emerge -l doesn't show changes between slots)

j.
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