Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Robert Moss <robmoss@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] emerge -U getting removed?
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:50:40
Message-Id: 4151BBA3.8010409@gentoo.org
In Reply to: [gentoo-dev] emerge -U getting removed? by Jeffrey Forman
1 Jeffrey Forman wrote:
2 > Just this morning (afternoon/evening) on #-dev I got to talking to some
3 > people about the usefulness of "emerge -U." I was wondering if someone
4 > had any clue as to why its being removed? I frequently mix packages in
5 > ~x86 to test, or just to use newer revisions which are more stable and
6 > with -U going away, I wont be able to update my machine without
7 > downgrading a <insert explitive> load of packages.
8 >
9 > Yes I know about editing package.keywords, but how much of a PITA is
10 > that to have to add an entry for every package you emerge that is masked
11 > for one reason or another.
12 >
13 > Any thoughts, comments, or ideas of how you want to burn me at the
14 > stake?
15 >
16 > -Jeffrey
17
18 What's wrong with "emerge -U"? I'll tell you what's wrong with emerge
19 -U. Its behaviour is completely broken. What happens, for example, when
20 rsync-2.6.1 hits portage, is marked stable, then it's realised that it's
21 broken, but "emerge -U" won't downgrade it as the ebuild is masked
22 pending further development rather than removed? I'll tell you what. You
23 get a ****load of whinging users on the forums and on b.g.o saying "my
24 emerge sync doesn't work, wtf?!?!?!!!!11111oneoneone". There have also
25 been issues in the past couple of days with the new glibc snapshots and
26 the lack of "return" (it was broken). And with gcc-3.4.2 (broken).
27 And... well, you get the idea. So, if you're willing to deal with all
28 those "bugs" and forum posts on your own, or with your fellow intrepid
29 "emerge -U" users, I'm sure neither I nor any of the other -U detractors
30 will mind it staying.
31
32 The pertinent question here, of course, is: are you willing to do that?
33 I think I know the answer to that already. I'll give you a hint as to
34 the workload involved there: you'll be getting more bug report e-mails
35 and forum PMs than you can conceivably read.
36
37 So yeah, I'll burn you at the stake ;-p Be aware that this is the
38 position held by someone who's been a dev for not that long but who's
39 been one of the mainstays of the Portage & Programming forum for a good
40 two years. It's users that "-U" hurts, not devs.
41
42 --
43 gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-dev] emerge -U getting removed? Philippe Trottier <tchiwam@g.o>