Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: news item: changes to stages (make.conf and make.profile)

[Fabian Groffen]

On 24-07-2012 07:20:31 -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 7:07 AM, Fabian Groffen <grobian@g.o> wrote:
> > I don't know about general consensus.  In my opinion, it's plain spam to
> > existing users.  (And that would IMO be the xth news item in a row to be
> > spam.)
>
> Can't say I agree here.  Some news items have been more useful than
> others, but I doubt the typical Gentoo user (who does not subscribe to
> -dev) would think that many of the past messages have been spam.

Ok.  This is subjective.

> Long-time Gentoo users aren't going to notice in the handbook that the
> location of /etc/make.conf has moved - I know that if I'm doing an
> install I tend to use the handbook as a checklist but I skim through
> it so fast that I doubt I'd notice a big change.  They're going to
> appreciate a heads-up.  The only people who wouldn't consider it news
> are those following this list, and judging by the state of this thread
> you'll already have read 40 posts on the topic, so the 41st won't be
> that big of a deal.

Long-time Gentoo users either 1) don't reinstall systems that often (why
would they?), or 2) know that things every once in a while change.

IMO, with 1) you'd expect that user to read the docs again when doing a
new install.  With 2) they already figured out when they did a new
install that /etc/make.conf was not there, however putting something in
a file out there did work as expected as well.

From a different angle, perhaps stage3s shouldn't include a default
/etc/make.conf at all.  Would solve this issue nicely, and doesn't
require a news item at all, IMO.

At the moment Portage refuses to read /etc/make.conf, a news item and
possibly even a block of Portage update until the file has been moved
would be in order.

-- 
Fabian Groffen
Gentoo on a different level