Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: David Chamberlain <david@×××××××××××××××.com>
To: gentoo-dev@g.o
Subject: [gentoo-dev] Use of --update: suggestion
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 22:09:42
Message-Id: 200204161446.17820.david@trailheadcoffee.com
1 I have a suggestion which might at least avoid some of the complaints
2 the libpng issue has generated. The idea might have been mentioned
3 before, but if so, I think it bears repeating.
4
5 The problem seems to be that many people don't quite understand what
6 they're getting with Gentoo - in particular, that it's up to them to
7 decide whether or not to upgrade fully functional software and risk
8 breaking their system. The ideas about stability levels etc. have some
9 merit, but it won't fix that basic problem. So, I strongly suggest
10 modifying the --upgrade command so that it behaves like unmerge - i.e.
11 it asks the user if they really want to go ahead. --update world
12 should be forced to act like --pretend, so that the user has to see
13 what's going to be upgraded, and has to at least click enter once to
14 set the upgrade in motion. There could be a flag in make.conf that
15 power users could set to skip all this, but the default would be to ask
16 for confirmation. The message might be something like this:
17 =======================================
18 The following packages will be upgraded by this command:
19 sys-libs/verydangerouslib
20 x11-wm/sillywm
21 Please understand that the latest release of any software package can
22 contain bugs or compatibility problems that might damage your system;
23 if you do not have to upgrade, you might want to reconsider. You can
24 always upgrade individual packages to a trusted version by using a
25 command like "emerge
26 /usr/portage/x11-base/xfree/xfree-4.1.0-r6.ebuild".
27 SO: are you sure you want to proceed? [Y n]"
28 ========================================