Re: [gentoo-user] Things that can be improved

[Daniel da Veiga]

On 7/7/06, Richard Fish <bigfish@××××××××××.org> wrote:
> On 7/7/06, Rafael Fernández López <info@××××××××××××××××××.com> wrote:
> >         The first thing that I'd change is "etc-update" or "dispatch-conf". I'd
> > suggest to create some kind of tool like "dpkg-reconfigure" in Debian.
>
> I don't know anything about dpkg-reconfigure, so I can't really comment on this.
>
> But one thing I really do like about gentoo is that I *can* go modify
> configuration files directly, without worrying about some distribution
> tool clobbering my changes, or choking on something it wasn't setup to
> deal with.  This is one of the things that drove me from SuSE.  I
> would really object to some kind of "configuration file configurator"
> app.
>
> >         Second thing that I'd improve is a security one. I know that "emerge"
> > is a very cared package, but it is a script. Suppose that someone
>
> I think this is a non-issue.  Something like this would be found
> incredibly quickly by the portage devs working in their overlay, and
> they would know how to fix it.  In the worst of all possible cases, it
> might theoretically make it to the ~arch users, who again, presumably
> have enough experience to know how to resurrect their systems without
> resorting to a live CD and re-install.
>
> It is far more likely that you could break python (and thus portage)
> from a mishandled gcc or glibc update.  But there is already a
> recovery option available in this case; if you have buildpkg in your
> FEATURES, you will already have a backup copy of
> portage/python/gcc/glibc/everything else in $PKGDIR.  Even if portage
> is broken, you can extract those tarballs to get back to a working
> configuration.  Of course, this assumes that tar and bzip2
> work...otherwise you are down to booting from a live CD.
>
>
> One area I do think could be improved is in the update process.
> Currently we have etc-update, revdep-rebuild, fix_libtool_files.sh,
> eselect {opengl,gcc,binutils}, python-updater, perl-cleaner, and so
> on.  Each update requires running one or more of these.  But which
> ones, when, why, and in what order?  I *think* _I_ know the answers to
> those questions, but I would bet most users do not.  So I think a
> little more automation (or at least hand-holding) in portage to deal
> with the above would be very useful.  Something like:
>
> emerge -DNuv world
> <several hours later>
> Updates done.
>
> Hmm, looks like a new version of python was installed.  You should run
> python-updater to make sure all python modules are rebuilt.  Do you
> want to do that now?
>

That's more likely to be needed. +1

-- 
Daniel da Veiga
Computer Operator - RS - Brazil
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