Re: [gentoo-user] Wrong dependencies to postgresql

[Enrico Weigelt]

* Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. <bss03@××××××××××.net> wrote:

Hi,

> Jakub is pretty bugzilla savvy, are you sure you bugs weren't
> closed for valid reasons?

well, after some discussion @ gentoo-dev, it's now a little bit
clearer:

The bugs are not completely valid yet (but soon will be), since 
libpq (<=8.0.8) is still buggy/incomplete (missing pg_config), so
some packages may still need postgresql for building (not runtime).
I supplied fixed ebuild to the -dev, but they told me they don't 
see what I'm fixing ;-o 

Well, this issue is actually fixed in 8.0.9 (IMHO not completely
stabelized yet, but soon), while introducing another, even worse at 
the same time: libpq-8.0.9 doesn't wanna play w/ postgresql<=8.0.8,
but postgresql-8.0.9 wants exactly libpq-8.0.9. So there's no clean 
way to solve this. Someone @ b.g.o suggested completely removing 
postgres+libpq and installing afresh, but that's an absolutely 
no-go for production systems (IMHO). Disabling deps for upgrade
should work, but is unclean.

My fixed ebuild should fit into the gap by adding pg_config to 
libpq (overwriting the one from postgresql) and changing the
postgresql ebuild to be satisfied w/ this libpq version. 

> Sometime he does jump the gun though,

Not only at me ? Some bit salving ;-)

<snip>

> Bugzilla is *the only* official channel to get bugs reported
> so that the developers will fix them. If you don't report your
> bugs, you'll just have to wait for someone else to report or
> the developers to "accidentally" fix the bug while working on
> something else.

I'll simply do it by myself. I have to maintain my own overlay
nevertheless. Maybe I could drop a note to -user if perhaps
anyone's interested in my stuff. But I had to learn filing bugs
and talking @ -dev are just a waste my (rare+expensive) time.

> > Lots of packages have an wrong/unnecessary dependency to
> > postgresql.
>
> I don't doubt it.  It's generally better to depend on too much
> rather than too little, and once things are "working" it's hard
> to get someone to "fix" it and run the risk of breaking it further.

Wouldn't be such an problem w/ really cleanroom builds + tests
from the first place. Seems, Gentoo isn't made for that.

<snip>

> > Three cases:
> >
> > a) probably traditionally depended on the whole postgresql, maybe
> >    since before libpq was an own package. ie. qt, dovecot, ...
>
> Have you confirmed these actually compile just against libpg?

I'm still in the process. The lack of automatic cleanroom builds 
requires me to install an minimal jail before each build.
(most of my gentoo systems actually have postgresql server running)

> > b) many apps (ie. webapps like bugzilla) have postgresql as dep.,
> >    although they do not need it to be installed. (ie. bugzilla does
> >    not have to do anything directly w/ postgresql, since it uses
> >    perl-DBD for database access). Of course they maybe want to
> >    have access to some postgres database, but this obviously does
> >    not need an local server.
>
> Are you sure this isn't bringing in postgresql to satisfy some virtual?

Which virtual should it be ? And why ?

> In all cases, you've confirmed that the dependency is direct and not
> USE flag controlled?

Of course, it is controlled by the postgresql useflag. But that doesn't
make it better. Bugzilla does not need an local postgres server.
And I didn't find any sign that it needs pg_config, so this current
libpq bug also shouldn't be an issue.


cu
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