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On 16/04/2016 18:58, »Q« wrote: |
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> On Sat, 16 Apr 2016 12:41:37 -0400 |
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> Alan Grimes <ALONZOTG@×××××××.net> wrote: |
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> |
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>> I've got more years on gentoo that most of you. |
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> |
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> I wonder how you determined that, but it doesn't matter; it's the |
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> content of posts that reveal cluelessness quotient, not a clock. |
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> |
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>> I only joined this list a few months ago because emerge was starting |
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>> to cause problems |
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> |
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> You joined the wrong list -- this one's for helping each other. |
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> Unfortunately, I don't know what is the right list for informing the |
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> world that portage is malicious and out to get you. |
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> |
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>> I am speaking from many years of experience with weekly updates when I |
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>> tell you that ubuntu-style "update everything while I go play Space |
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>> Invaders" (Or Kerbal Space Program) absolutely does work unless emerge |
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>> decides to get stupid and look for excuses not to do what you asked it |
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>> to. |
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> |
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> That's funny, IME portage is better at automagically resolving blockers |
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> than it ever was in the past. Then again, I don't know how it was |
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> before 2001. |
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Oh gawd it was awful. You'd get a message saying two things blocked and |
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it was up to you to unblock them yourself. |
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But, things in computing were simpler in those days. Disks were IDE or |
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SCSI, a desktop was just X11 plus a bunch of apps, some of them aware of |
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each other. Hotplugging sort of worked but not really for external disks |
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(if you even had one that is). All of /dev was static and we had MAKEDEV |
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- it created one of everything you'd ever need and if not, well there |
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was mknod |
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And the most complex thing portage had to deal with was virtuals. |
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I don't think even SLOTs were around then. |
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Nowadays things are so different, out hardware is vastly more complex, |
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so is the software and portage has to keep up. Here's something |
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important to consider: |
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The most complex calculation most of us ever ask our computers to do is |
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what portage needs to figure out for emerge -avuND world |
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Like Dale correctly keeps pointing out, this isn't Ubuntu which only |
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gives you one choice - the one the package maintainer made. Gentoo is |
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unique in that it has to cope[1] with any choice the user decided to |
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make, and still get the answer right. Even my fleet of FreeBSD servers |
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doesn't offer that choice - I can compile from ports, but a port only |
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has one version and each has a poor replacement for USE. |
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[1] in truth, it's the devs who have to cope with that. They need to get |
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a reasonably good idea of what will work with set and set the blockers |
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accordingly. Portage only follows their hints. So thumbs up to our devs! |
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> |
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> (Sorry, everyone. I'll try to quit feeding it, I promise.) |
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> |
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-- |
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Alan McKinnon |
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alan.mckinnon@×××××.com |