Re: [gentoo-user] portage getting mixed up with USE?

[Neil Bothwick]

On Fri, 24 Jun 2011 00:31:38 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> Because the behaviour changed to something that is the exact opposite
> without any warning. Portage always used to tell what it will do. Now,
> simply by leaving the relevant options at the default, it tells me
> what it should do. How much more contrary to reasonable expectation
> can you get?

It's not the exact opposite. Portage is still telling you what it needs,
but all in one go, not one problem at a time.

> Imagine if tcpwrappers did this. Imagine that hosts.deny was dropped
> and hosts.allow retained, also imagine that the desired config file
> name becomes hosts.tcpd but it will use hosts.allow if hosts.tcpd is
> not found. Now also imagine that the default interpretation of
> hosts.tcpd is now default deny, explicit allow.
>
> All your rules now suddenly invert. Chaos ensues.
>
> Sure, it's a contrived example,

Not only contrived, but irrelevant. Because tcpwrappers actually does
something. If your USE flags are unsuitable, portage actually does
nothing. All that's changed is how it tells you why it has done nothing.

> Few people will argue against the existence of the new unmask options.
> Folk who want it can use it. Just don't make it the default in such a
> way that it catches old time users by surprise.

I must admit, although I read about the new option, probably in an elog
message, I was surprised the first time it kicked in when I hadn't turned
it on. Although it was not a bad surprised and I then recalled that the
message had explained that this was now the default behaviour.

One of the unwritten rules of Gentoo is that if you don't read elog
messages, you can expect to get burned.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered
plant?