Re: [gentoo-user] emerge --update behavior

[Frank Steinmetzger]

On Mon, Jan 02, 2012 at 10:26:02AM -0500, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
> On 01/02/2012 10:05 AM, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> >
> > So when the user tells portage to emerge (not merge) something it goes
> > in world as obviously that's what the user wanted. Presumably the user
> > knows what they are doing and can deal with both pieces. If the user
> > would rather have software hold his hand, that user is better served by
> > Windows or Ubuntu or any number of user-centric distros, but probably
> > not by Gentoo.
> >
> > This isn't elitist, it's just the way things are. Portage's job is to
> > listen to *you*, not to to tell you what you want. The automation
> > portage provides is just the logical conclusion of what should happen
> > in future after you emerged something.
> >
>
> That unspoken agreement is only beneficial if I have the means by which
> to tell portage what I want it to do. The problem lies at a higher
> level: I think I'm telling portage to update a package, but that's not
> what --update means. It's hard for me to tell portage what I want it to
> do, so the fact that it assumes I know what I'm doing isn't constructive.

Look at it this way:
with emerge <package> you tell portage to install a package and add it to
world. Period. The package will be installed, no matter whether it’s at the
newest version or not.  With -u, however, you tell emerge to only do the
installation if the package is actually upgradable.  So it’s not an action
(“upgrade this package”), but an option (“install only if upgradable”).
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