[gentoo-dev] Re: rfc: runlevels in runit

[Duncan]

William Hubbs posted on Sun, 23 Feb 2014 16:13:18 -0600 as excerpted:

> One is to use a use flag to build them. If I do that, I would consider
> forcing the use flag on with an iuse default, so anyone who doesn't want
> the runlevels rebuilt every time would need to turn it off in make.conf
> or package.use.
>
> The other way is to put this setup in pkg_config, which would mean a
> user would need to run "emerge runit --config" to have the runlevels
> built.
>
> The first way means that if you decide you want the runlevels built the
> way we build them you would need to emerge the package. The second way
> means that you could just use the --config option for emerge to rebuild
> them any time.

What about putting the rebuild in a non-pkg_config function, then hooking 
up that function to BOTH the above, so users can choose automatic rebuild 
if they like, and regardless of whether they've done so, they can run 
emerge --config runit any time to rebuild it independent of remerging the 
entire package?

Meanwhile, based on a decade plus of gentoo user experience, in practice, 
emerge --config is obscure enough that using it in an ebuild tends to 
hide it.  If that's deliberate and the intent is a mostly one-shot
first-configuration run[1], emerge --config is a good choice.  But if the 
idea is to make configuration more routinely accessible not to hide it, 
an alternative such as an eselect module or the various individual 
package config tools (gcc-config for gcc, the rc-* tools for openrc, etc) 
should be considered instead.

OT: I've often wondered if emerge --config is actually intended to hide 
mostly one-shot configs, or if that's purely unintended accident.  It 
seems to me that if it's the latter, portage needs some standard method 
to make such --config options more visible.  Perhaps an
emerge --config-list option or some such, to list every installed package 
that has an emerge --config option would be a good start.  Perhaps there 
already is such a thing, but it's so obscure I've never heard of it, even 
after a decade as a "relatively advanced" gentoo user.

---
[1] Consider bind.  An admin runs emerge --config bind once to set it up, 
and then don't run it again unless he or the ebuild decides to massively 
change the chroot layout or something.  Routine administration is 
accomplished by more routine methods, editing the config file(s), etc.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman