Re: [gentoo-dev] News item for eudev deprecation

[David Seifert]

On Mon, 2021-08-23 at 11:16 -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 10:46 AM David Seifert <soap@g.o> wrote:
> >
> > Let assume the counterfactual for a moment here: We retained the
> > USE=systemd flag for all unit files and what not, so people can
> > cleanse
> > themselves of the systemd units etc. without resorting to
> > INSTALL_MASK.
> >
> > How would USE=-systemd have prevented this situation? USE=-systemd
> > would
> > randomly mv and sed random files so the "systemd-" prefix doesn't show
> > up?
>
> So, I think using USE=systemd to control installing units is a bad
> idea, for the same reason that it is a bad idea for controlling init.d
> scripts.  It results in users having to rebuild half their system just
> to get those files installed if they later need them.
>
> However, the argument would be that if we had used USE=systemd to
> control installing units, then users wouldn't set an INSTALL_MASK, and
> thus when udev comes along it would still install everything just
> fine.  I doubt we'd have it rename anything - the systemd- prefix
> would still apply, but since there are no INSTALL_MASKs then it
> wouldn't cause any issues.  The issue isn't systemd in the
> filenames/paths, but users attempts to keep things from being
> installed with those names/paths.

Where did we ever recommend that in an official capacity? I recall
people saying this off-the-record on IRC ("...then use INSTALL_MASK if
you have to remove the units"), but removing any kind of file from the
image has a likelihood of breaking something, hence I can't imagine us
recommending this in the handbook or on OFFICIAL wiki pages.

Anyhow, that ship has already sailed ages ago with sys-auth/elogind:
https://bugs.gentoo.org/758632