| 1 |
> 1) documentation: please ensure the 'build' options |
| 2 |
> (/etc/make.conf.build) are explained as to what all the three letter |
| 3 |
> acronyms mean and the impact/dependencies of picking them |
| 4 |
|
| 5 |
Probably true, although /etc/make.conf does say pretty clearly not |
| 6 |
to use those flags: |
| 7 |
|
| 8 |
# Other build related use flags (don't use these) |
| 9 |
# ----------------------------- |
| 10 |
# pic static build simpleinit |
| 11 |
|
| 12 |
|
| 13 |
> 2)documentation: the departure from 'normal' system startup scripts |
| 14 |
> needs to described. What will happen when a 'normal' non-gentoo |
| 15 |
> application tries to install itself expecting a 'standard' layout? |
| 16 |
|
| 17 |
True, we do need much better documentation on our new start-up scripts. |
| 18 |
I assume that there will eventually be an IBM developerworks article |
| 19 |
on how they work, but we really should have something now. |
| 20 |
|
| 21 |
> 3) portage: a great drawback seems that 'constant human effort' is |
| 22 |
> required to ensure the portage tree is updated. I can see this becoming |
| 23 |
> an issue for gentoo. There are many applications released and updated |
| 24 |
> that must conform to the portage system to make sure 'the latest and |
| 25 |
> greatest' really IS available "as advertised" on the web site :) eg. I |
| 26 |
> needed the latest Matrox drivers and Powerdesk utility which I installed |
| 27 |
> manually. my system's portage is not aware of manual installs I perform |
| 28 |
> and I needed the drivers before they could be added to the 'gentoo |
| 29 |
> portage' tree. |
| 30 |
|
| 31 |
So far our solution has been to make the ebuild so simple to write |
| 32 |
that it is nearly as fast to write the ebuild and use that as it |
| 33 |
is to do the usual ./configure && make && make install series. |
| 34 |
There are of course special cases that are not as simple, but often |
| 35 |
updating an ebuild for a newer version of a package is as simple |
| 36 |
as just changing the name of the ebuild to reflect the new version |
| 37 |
number. If you do write your own ebuilds, please send a copy to |
| 38 |
us at gentoo-ebuild.gentoo.org! |
| 39 |
|
| 40 |
|
| 41 |
> 4) portage: sounds powerful - perhaps it can also be used as a means of |
| 42 |
> a useful/automated/'user-friendly' 'uninstall' which is sorely lacking |
| 43 |
> in the unix world. I have tried 4+ distributions of Linux and am |
| 44 |
> getting a bit tired of telling their respective 'uninstall' that when I |
| 45 |
> want to remove a game, I would STILL like to keep gnome on my system. |
| 46 |
|
| 47 |
Portage uninstalls work very well, but there are a couple of glitches. |
| 48 |
It is still possible to have a (broken) ebuild that installs files |
| 49 |
directly to the filesystem (instead of using a "fake install" first), |
| 50 |
and those files aren't removed by Portage. Also, right now if gnome |
| 51 |
is removed by Portage, the packages that depend on gnome will not be, |
| 52 |
thereby potentially breaking lots of stuff. These issues are being |
| 53 |
worked upon, but we're a pretty busy group! |
| 54 |
|
| 55 |
> 5) portage: if possible (space requirements, etc), 'generic 386' |
| 56 |
> binaries for the base system should be in the portage tree so that |
| 57 |
> initial installs/builds can progress faster. the 'emerge system' on my |
| 58 |
> P4 1.4 took a looong time. Would be better to have as much generic base |
| 59 |
> system and then be able to fine tune as desired. |
| 60 |
|
| 61 |
When 1.0 comes out there will be .iso's with binary packages that |
| 62 |
can be installed directly. It's just that Gentoo development has |
| 63 |
been too rapid and unstable recently to make that feasible at the |
| 64 |
moment. I think that Gentoo is stable enough now, however, that |
| 65 |
our next release really should have binaries available. |
| 66 |
|
| 67 |
> 6) portage: organization. consider reducing the # of categories. |
| 68 |
> People can mainly remember 7 +/- 2 items of information. go into |
| 69 |
> /usr/portage and there are a lot of choices which will only increase in |
| 70 |
> the future. Consider: |
| 71 |
|
| 72 |
It may be that we just need a better index (or search system), rather |
| 73 |
than fewer categories, but I'm pretty agnostic on this one. |
| 74 |
|
| 75 |
Welcome to Gentoo Linux! |
| 76 |
|
| 77 |
-Grant- |
| 78 |
-- |
| 79 |
___________________________________________________________________ |
| 80 |
| Grant Goodyear | The Secrets of Physics: | |
| 81 |
| Dept. of Chemistry - Clemson U |1. Add zero. | |
| 82 |
| Clemson, SC 29634 |2. Multiply by one. | |
| 83 |
|-------------------------------------|3. Expand in a Taylor series| |
| 84 |
|e-mail: goodyea@×××××××.edu |4. Integrate by parts. | |
| 85 |
|www:bernacchi.chem.uh.edu/~grant |5. Fourier transform. | |
| 86 |
| |6. Add auxiliary variables | |
| 87 |
|_____________________________________|____________________________| |
Archives