Re: [gentoo-user] Pick your hypothesis:

[Michael Jones]

On Thu, Jan 24, 2019 at 2:33 PM Jack <ostroffjh@×××××××××××××××××.net>
wrote:

> On 2019.01.24 15:17, Michael Jones wrote:
> [snip....]
> > A lot of people run emerge without checking the preliminary console
> > output.
> But most (I hope) of them understand the possible problems, and are
> willing to "pick up the pieces" if something goes wrong.  Most of them
> do not blame the Gentoo developers in such a case.
>

Of course.


> > I don't think it's fair to imply that doing that is somehow wrong.
> Some/many of us might disagree.  If you don't check the output to see
> exactly what emerge is going to do, it may well not do what you
> want/expect.  Is it "wrong" to drive your car with a blindfold on.
>

You're absolutely right that if you don't check the output, it might be
doing something different than what you expect.

I don't really see how the car analogy is applicable though, so I can't
agree with that.


> > The vast majority of Linux distributions support unattended upgrades
> > without a second thought.
> The vast majority of Linux distributions are binary distributions,
> where a package either works or not, and if it doesn't, it is very
> likely a packaging error.  The vast majority of Linux distributions do
> not install from source, with lots of ways of configuring things to the
> user's liking, many of which possible configurations will not work.  I
> would say that binary distributions are much more deterministic in
> their behavior.  You really can't run Gentoo safely for very long
> without paying close attention to what you are doing - with both
> installs and upgrades.
>
>
Well,lets break this down into smaller pieces:

> The vast majority of Linux distributions are binary distributions,
where a package either works or not, and if it doesn't, it is very
likely a packaging error.

Sure, a lot of the time problems with binary distros are packaging errors.
Bugs can happen in a lot of ways. Sometimes the package is just broken
*shrug*.

> The vast majority of Linux distributions do not install from source, with
lots of ways of configuring things to the user's liking, many of which
possible configurations will not work.

Sure, that's true.

While I agree that the number of user facing toggles increase the
likelihood of something going wrong, I don't agree that this is inherently
an excuse. Obviously it's an explanation as to how something going wrong
wasn't able to be addressed ahead of time, but it's not automatically a
fair excuse / justification for delivering an ebuild to the portage tree
that has problems.

I'm not arguing that the Gentoo developers are somehow beholden to users,
nor am I saying that it's wise to assume everything will work correctly.
I'm simply saying that it's not fair to say that not checking the output of
emerge is inherently wrong. If it was inherently wrong, then emerge should
not allow for a package to be emerged until the user has reviewed it's
stated plan.

> You really can't run Gentoo safely for very long without paying close
attention to what you are doing - with both installs and upgrades.

I don't know that this is true. I've had the same set of use flags
configured on all of my Gentoo computers for 5-ish years now, and I've only
very rarely messed with them. For the most part, running "eix-sync &&
emerge --update --newuse --deep @world" once a week has allowed me to have
unattended upgrades for many months at a time, only needing to adjust one
or two things every several months. Needing to tweak something is my
exception, not my rule.

My reason for replying initially was that I didn't think it was fair to
make light of users who don't expect to *need* to scrutinize the output of
emerge every single time they run it. Those people exist (hi, nice to meet
you), and it's not fair to say they're wrong or somehow making a grave
error in judgement.

It's entirely fair to say that they are treading on thin ice, and that if
they choose to do this they should understand the risks, but it's not fair
to say they're automatically wrong to use the tool in a way that the tool
allows itself to be used.

Either way, we don't need to turn this into a long and in depth discussion,
so I probably won't reply to the list again unless you have any specific
questions or concerns for me.

Happy compiling :-)