Re: [gentoo-user] eix output for dev-perl/Expect

[PaulNM]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Monday 26 May 2008, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
>
>> I'm puzzled by the output of 'eix' in respect to several, and some
>> associated odd behavior of
>> emerge.  I'll use as an example dev-perl/Expect.  It's installed, but
>> I don't understand what eix
>> is trying to tell me about it with the [D] at the beginning of the
>> report, or the "*" associated
>> with the Available versions strings.
>>
>> The questions:
>>     1. what do these mean, and what was interfering with emerge
>> -aDNvu this morning?
>
> The '*' is described in man eix, line 541, thusly:
>
>        *3.3.3 This means the version is "masked by missing  keyword"
>               but  stable  for  an alien architecture.
>

Alan, that is indeed what the man page says, but testing on my end shows 
it is plain wrong. Examples will follow.

> Dunno what the 'D' means, but I would resume it means that eix thinks
> you have to downgrade Expect to a version the is not masked by missing
> keyword.

Good guess.  That's what I thought when I first started seeing it in my 
eix output, but testing shows that's not the case.  I don't see "I"'s 
anymore, just "D"'s. Every installed package shows up with a D.

>
> Can't answer up on your emerge problem, as you neglected to describe
> it :-)
>
>>     2. (probably more important) how do I find this out for myself in
>> the future?
>
> man eix
>
> be sure to reserve a semester for a thorough study of this fascinating
> subject
>

EX:

Robotech paul # eix eix
[D] app-portage/eix
      Available versions:  *0.10.2 *0.10.5 ~*0.12.4 ~*0.12.5 {doc sqlite}
      Installed versions:  0.10.5(12:25:03 AM 03/17/2008)(-sqlite)
      Homepage:            http://eix.sourceforge.net
      Description:         Small utility for searching ebuilds with 
indexing for fast results

I then checked the ebuilds in /usr/portage/app-portage/eix/ to verify 
versions and status. There are four versions in the tree, 2 (0.10.2 + 
0.10.5) stable and 2 (0.12.4 + 0.12.5) ~arch for my arch (x86).

Robotech paul # eix -V
eix 0.10.5 (gcc-4.1.2, i686-pc-linux-gnu)

Doing "emerge -pv --update --deep --newuse world" does not want to 
downgrade (or upgrade) anything.

One more example with slots and masked versions:

Robotech paul # eix kdebase-meta
[D] kde-base/kdebase-meta
      Available versions:
         (3.5)  *3.5.8 *3.5.9
         (kde-4)        {M}(~*)4.0.2 {M}(~*)4.0.3 {M}(~*)4.0.4
      Installed versions:  3.5.9(3.5)(06:53:15 PM 05/19/2008) 
4.0.4(kde-4)(06:07:46 PM 05/20/2008)
      Homepage:            http://www.kde.org/
      Description:         kdebase - merge this to pull in all 
kdebase-derived packages

As you can see, I have 2 versions installed, 3.5.9 from slot 3.5 and 
4.0.4 from slot kde-4.
According to the man page {M} means it was profile masked, but someone 
unmasked it via /etc/portage/package.unmask . It also says ~* (note no 
parenthesis in man page) means masked by missing keyword, stable on no 
architecture, but unstable on an alien architecture.
Checking ebuilds show KEYWORDS="~amd64 ~x86" so it appears this is 
correct. I did have to unmask slot kde-4.

As far as I can tell, EVERY version in the output (except the 
"Installed" line) is prepended with an "*". Perhaps this is to improve 
readability? It also seems that at least some of those masking info 
add-ons are now listed in parenthesis, although simple keyword masking 
appears like ~*0.8.2 .

I haven't been able to find any real info regarding reading eix output. 
  The man page seems to be the only thing, and is apparently somewhat 
out of date.  It's still a good starting point though.


PaulNM
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