[gentoo-user] Re: --depclean wants to remove openrc. Yikes!

[Martin Vaeth]

Alan Mackenzie <acm@×××.de> wrote:
>
>> > Less clever people like me follow the handbook, and assume that
>> > packages in @system are protected.
>
>> And they are right to do so. And openrc is not in @system (at least not
>> in the profile which you have chosen), and certainly the handbook does
>> not claim the contrary.
>
> Now you're getting legalistic.

Yes, because gentoo follows simple rules, fortunately. One of the basic
rules it: Put the packages which you want to use into your world file.
You are ignoring these rules and complain.

> By @system I meant "the operating
> system", not what some legal text defines it to be.  That "the handbook
> does not claim the contrary" is poor reasoning.

No, it is not. You are making the wrong assumption that for some packages
the rules (to put into @world everything which you want to use) do not
apply. And you make this assumption on no basis from the handbook or
anything else. Just on a gut feeling what should be "the operating system",
completely ignoring that "the operating system" depends on what you
configure it to be.

>> No. Putting the packages which *you* want to use into world is
>> the most natural thing to do.
>
> It is unnatural to regard the operating system as a package.

The operating system is not the init system. The init system is clearly
a package, because you can have many alternatives for it. It fact,
depending on what you need your machine for, it might be fine to have no
init system at all.

> It is natural to assume the OS won't delete itself.

Indeed, and it won't delete anything crucial for your system, and even
more, it won't delete anything what you need. But you have to tell
portage *what* you need and *what* is crucial for your system.
The handbook contains the instruction how to do this: Put the packages
you need into the @world file.

>> You did. You would have done the same mistake if you would have
>> emerged systemd with the same profile without putting it into world,
>> and have configured your boot-loader to always load systemd [...]
>
> Now you're trying to win an argument because you know portage etc.,
> better than me.  And you're being pedantic and legalistic.

Yes, a computer program has to be pedantic and legalistic, because
it has to follow the rules. You are instead working with an
intentionally undefined notion of a "system" which you expect portage
to magically protect, although you intentionally leave it completely
unclear how portage should know what this system is.
There are two ways how a computer program can know this:

1. You tell it to the program.
2. The program tries to smart-ass you by analyzing your configuration
   and boot-up files and makig some guesses about it.

The solution 1 is the one chosen by gentoo. If you want 2, please use
some of many other available distributions - and then learn how to
workaround the problems if the program does the wrong guess in your
case.

> Quite simply
> I expect that an OS, including Gentoo, will not delete itself unless
> specifically asked by the user.  I'm not getting involved in arguments
> about details.

THat's exactly your mistake: You cannot expect a program to do some
vague unspecified things. (Except - see 2 above.)

> Gentoo is not perfect.

Nope. But the thing you complain about - the choice given to the user -
is an *advantage* of gentoo.

>> Oh, come on: You have misconfigured your system by making wrong
>> assumptions, and now you call yourself the victim.
>
> I did not misconfigure my system.  I followed the handbook

No, you did not follow the handbook. The handbook says to put the
packages you use into @world. Obviously, you did not.

> I'm glad you're not the person responsible for safety in the place I
> work.  There, specific steps are taken to avoid injury to people who make
> mistakes.  For example, there are bars to prevent people from falling out
> of windows, there are non-slip floor surfaces, and so on.

Unix is nothing for you. It has no safety belts, and never can have
without becoming something completely different.

>> Probably everybody should know that practically *every* package
>> can be a critical system file - it all depends on your setup.
>
> Please don't be like that.  You know damn well that only a few packages
> are critical

Yes. But *which* ones are depends on your setup.
Again, there are only the two possibilities:

1. You are responsible for your system - and in particular tell portage
   what your system actually is.
2. Portage is responsible for your system - then you have to be taken
   away any important choice about your main system, or portage tries to
   smart-ass you.

Again, if you want 2, go to another distribution. For gentoo, 2 would
be the death.

> The init system is absolutely needed for *every* system.  That there are
> alternatives is no excuse for Gentoo to delete it.

But not *all* installed init systems are absolutely needed for *every* system.
There is no excuse for a "cleanup" command to not remove most of them, only
because some guy *might* have configured only one of them.

>> > Any system that comes within one keypress of destruction, when the user
>> > hasn't specifically requested it, is a buggy system.  portage is buggy.
>
>> alias ls="rm -rf /*"
>> ls
>
> Don't be so silly, please.

It is not more silly than your calling of portage buggy, only because it
does not read your mind.

>> Again, that the package is critical for *your* setup is a
>> particularity of *your* system.
>
> The init system is critical to every system, even yours.

Yes. But not necessarily openrc. And portage *cannot* know that openrc
is critical for *your* setup.

> I think our discussion has come to its natural end.

Indeed, you want emerge to behave as "do what I mean" instead of
"do what I tell you". The former is impossible for any computer program,
in principle, and any further discussion about it gets void.