Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Chris Gianelloni <wolf31o2@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Wishlist: an automated package upgrade system with fine-tunable sysadmin control
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 19:34:16
Message-Id: 1146079658.32740.15.camel@cgianelloni.nuvox.net
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] Wishlist: an automated package upgrade system with fine-tunable sysadmin control by Kevin
1 On Wed, 2006-04-26 at 14:24 -0400, Kevin wrote:
2 > And unless I'm way off-base, the version-difference-threshold notion
3 > described above is not implemented in portage now. Someone please
4 > correct me if I'm wrong.
5
6 You're off-base.
7
8 See, you can, for example, mask all revisions within the same version of
9 a package in your /etc/portage/package.mask file quite easily. So you
10 *could* have xemacs, using your own example, only ask to upgrade once
11 the stable version in the tree went over a certain threshold.
12
13 > Well your comment is certainly true in the most extreme interpretation,
14 > but the same thing can be accurately said about whether or not one
15 > should assume that the sun is going to rise tomorrow or that the
16 > universe won't disappear in a quantum fluctuation while you're sleeping,
17 > but IMO, such extreme statements have little value in day-to-day
18 > application. Everyone must make some assumptions about nearly
19 > everything or it becomes nearly impossible to function. I make all
20 > kinds of assumptions in administering computers and they almost always
21 > make my life much, MUCH easier than it would be without the assumptions.
22
23 I'm sorry, but do your friends call you Duncan? I'll leave it at that.
24
25 > Sometimes they bite me, but only rarely. The key to success here is
26 > having the judgment to know what is relatively safe to make assumptions
27 > about and what is not. Judgment is something that only a human can
28 > provide... not a computer. This is why I want greater and more granular
29 > control over upgrading packages in Gentoo. Aside from the points you
30 > make above (and I may be missing some other features currently present
31 > in Gentoo), my choices now are, in the grossest terms: upgrade every
32 > package by hand, one at a time, while sitting in front of the computer
33 > (which is very close to what I spent last weekend doing) or do an emerge
34 > world and hope for the best. IMO, that's not much control and does not
35 > allow for the application of judgment except in the former option (which
36 > is very, very time consuming).
37
38 You missed the ability to lock down to specific package versions, which
39 is already a 100% possibility with current portage. You can lock down
40 the versions to *anything that you want* via package.mask and
41 package.unmask, then simply have your system run an "emerge --update
42 --deep world" to automatically upgrade any and all packages not listed
43 in your mask files.
44
45 > What I really want is to make the process of maintaining Gentoo boxes
46 > over the long term easier (IOW: less time-consuming) than is now true,
47 > by adding some functionality that AFAICT does not now exist which would
48 > allow me to automate some things, turn off automation of other things,
49 > and as the sysadmin, have control over what those things should be. In
50 > my mind at least, the central theme in Gentoo of choice dovetails nicely
51 > with what I'm trying to describe here: control and choice that is highly
52 > fine-tunable by the owner of the box in regards to package upgrades.
53
54 Yup. It's called /etc/portage and we've had it for a while. You simply
55 seem to be missing its flexibility.
56
57 > I'm not a member of the portage-devel mailing list so I'm going to drop
58 > this now. If someone here is a member of both, then please feel free to
59 > cross-post this thread to whatever forum is most appropriate for it.
60 > After spending 30-45 minutes trying to help improve Gentoo by posting a
61 > new (AFAICT) idea in bugzilla and again here, I feel like I've done
62 > enough. IMHO, this is an idea that would add great value to Gentoo and
63 > I can't help but think that many sysadmins who must maintain many boxes
64 > would agree, but I have no particular attachment to the idea that would
65 > make me want to go around every mailing list under the sun trumpeting my
66 > idea to anyone who will listen. I'm just posting an idea that seemed
67 > like a good one to me. The devs may take it or leave it as they see fit.
68
69 Yep. It was such a good idea that the portage team implemented it quite
70 some time ago. *grin*
71
72 --
73 Chris Gianelloni
74 Release Engineering - Strategic Lead
75 x86 Architecture Team
76 Games - Developer
77 Gentoo Linux

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