Re: [gentoo-dev] Creating multiple "installations" on the same host

On Tue, Mar 23, 2004 at 02:31:52PM -0500, Paul Smith wrote:
> %% Lisa Seelye <lisa@g.o> writes:
>
>   ls> On Tue, 2004-03-23 at 13:44, Paul Smith wrote:
>   >> Hi all;
>   >>
>   >> I'm interested in allowing Portage to install packages into disk areas
>   >> rooted somewhere besides /.
>
>   ls> Try setting the ROOT envvar.
>
> But this unquestionably won't work: it's quite trivial to find examples
> of paths in Portage which do not reference any variable, but simply use
> a string constant fully-qualified path.
>
> In fact, I gave an example in the email you replied to, from the latest
> Portage CVS :-) :
>
>         myworld=open("/var/cache/edb/world","w")
>
> No setting of ROOT can possibly cause this to open any file other than
> "/var/cache/edb/world".  I want it to access the file
> "$ROOT/var/cache/edb/world" instead.

actually you are incorrect.  It does reference $ROOT/var/cache/edb/world
just try it and see.
In fact, if you use '$ROOT emerge blah blah' on an empty directory it
will create that /var/cache/edb heirarchy for you.

>
> There are _many_ such examples in the code, esp. looking for things like
> "/etc/portage/...".
>

IIRC there was a time when the only thing that was read from / and not
$ROOT was make.conf

I think that may have changed, I recall somebody mentioning a patch on IRC.

>
> Maybe I should step back a bit and ask, is it the design intent of the
> $ROOT variable that, if set, it would behave in the way I would like?
> Where I could keep multiple completely separate images rooted in
> different directories on a single system?
>
> If so, then maybe the changes we have made here are better termed bug
> fixes rather than enhancements.  That would be nice :).
>
> But, I don't think that this is so.  It seems to me that $ROOT is
> supposed to do something different than what I want: there are
> references to a root variable in the code in some places, but not all
> places.
>
> It looks like maybe ROOT allows you to redefine the installation
> location only, BUT it still uses the Portage database and configuration
> setup for the "real" system.  I need to have multiple completely
> independent installations with different sets of packages, etc. so I
> need the EDB, config (make.defaults, etc.) to be found in the ROOT as
> well.
>

If you are not cross compiling then you could just take a stage2
snapshot from a mirror somewhere, put it in /usr/stage2, then chroot
to there, with a fully functional toolchain/system and build to your
hearts desire.

>
> Maybe understanding what ROOT is for would help me with my confusion
> about the db["/"] vs. db[myroot] question as well.
>
>

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