Re: [gentoo-user] FW: mail-mta/exim (is blocking mail-mta/ssmtp-2.61-r2) (more info added)

[Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.]

On Tuesday 29 May 2007 06:51:12 Bo Ørsted Andresen wrote:
> On Tuesday 29 May 2007 10:32:23 Daevid Vincent wrote:
> > *  mail-mta/exim
> >       Latest version available: 4.67
> >       Latest version installed: 4.54
> >       Size of downloaded files: [no/bad digest]
> >       Homepage:    http://www.exim.org/
> >
> > So I have this in my package.mask:
> > >=mail-mta/exim-4.55
>
> [SNIP]
>
> > [nomerge      ] sys-process/vixie-cron-4.1-r10 [4.1-r9]
> > [ebuild  N    ]  mail-mta/ssmtp-2.61-r2  USE="ipv6 ssl -mailwrapper
>
> vixie-cron has a run-time dependency on virtual/mta which can be satisfied
> by both exim and ssmtp (and 8 other packages in the tree). ssmtp is the
> default provider.  It matters despite
> the "nomerge" because it's a run-time dependency rather than build-time.
>
> You have at least four options.

Another, less tenable, option is to use paludis as your package manager.  It 
will satisfy dependencies (including virtuals) with installed packages.  
Also, paludis's --show-reasons summary option is usually easier to understand 
and more informative than emerge/portage's --tree option.

However, paludis does have some missing features that may be critical for your 
environment: binary packages (both building and using) and a revdep-rebuild 
equivalent (although this can be hacked around) AND you can't "simply" switch 
between using paludis and emerge/portage; they use the same VDB, but 
repositories are configured differently and paludis can perform some caching 
that emerge/portage will not use/update.  It also runs the ebuild test phase 
by default which results in more merge failures and thus more required 
interaction; you can turn that off if you desire.

-- 
Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.                     ,= ,-_-. =. 
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