Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: "Marcus D. Hanwell" <cryos@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] FHS compliant KDE install and multi-version support
Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2008 16:41:20
Message-Id: 48C4042A.4000405@gentoo.org
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] FHS compliant KDE install and multi-version support by Dale
1 Dale wrote:
2 > Philip Webb wrote:
3 >> 080907 Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
4 >>
5 >>> ignoring FHS ... are not valid solutions to this problem.
6 >>>
7 >>
8 >> Why ? Who is demanding FHS compliance & for what reasons ?
9 >> Gentoo is not like other distros & sometimes needs to find its own way.
10 >> Given the well-known problems with KDE 4.0 & (still) 4.1 ,
11 >> I'ld like to be able to have the option of multiple versions available.
12 >>
13 >> I really do appreciate the hard volunteer work the KDE team donates
14 >> & have nothing but thanks to them all, but shouldn't your priority be
15 >> to get KDE 4.1 into 'testing', so that users can actually try it out ?
16 >> There's also 3.5.10 , which has been released, but isn't in Gentoo yet.
17 >>
18 > As a lowly user, I would like to keep KDE 3.5.* for quite a while and
19 > will most likely not switch until at least 4.3 or better is out. Even
20 > that mostly depends on how many "issues" are still left out there.
21 The slotting of KDE 3.* and KDE 4.* was never a question - these will
22 always remain slottable. The question is whether we really need to keep
23 slotting of minor KDE versions in the new 4.* line, i.e. KDE 4.1 and 4.2
24 slotted on the same system. I think the benefits of an FHS compliant,
25 non-slottable (with other KDE 4 minor versions) install is the best
26 thing for our general user base.
27
28 I also see how we can have slots outside of FHS for developers, power
29 users and the ones who just like to be different ;-) These can be
30 maintained in an overlay and use different slots than the ebuilds in the
31 main tree. It is no real issue to be able to run a slotted KDE 4.2
32 install alongside an FHS install of KDE 4.* and so FHS installs can be
33 successfully slotted with other kdeprefix installs too.
34
35 This helps to make the normal KDE install much simpler to maintain with
36 less gradual build up of cruft over the years (multiple older slots the
37 user is no longer using). It also brings us into line with the FHS
38 compliant Qt 4 ebuilds and other desktops such as Gnome. The purpose of
39 these posts was to solicit further feedback before things are pushed to
40 the main tree.
41
42 Most other distributions install KDE into the main /usr hierarchy, that
43 is the way upstream intends KDE to be installed and I think it will work
44 well for most users. I do think Gentoo is about choice and so having
45 overlays with ebuilds in a different slot seems to be the best solution
46 we can offer given the constraint of slot invariance.
47
48 Thanks,
49
50 Marcus

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-dev] FHS compliant KDE install and multi-version support Dale <dalek1967@×××××××××.net>
Re: [gentoo-dev] FHS compliant KDE install and multi-version support Philip Webb <purslow@×××××××××.ca>