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On 30/05/2015 03:48, walt wrote: |
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> <gory details of many frustrating hours of fighting with one particular |
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> gentoo package have been snipped to eliminate uncouth language> |
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> |
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> I think of a gentoo "binary" package (e.g. oracle-jdk-bin) as an ebuild |
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> that fetches a file from somewhere, then merely unpacks that file and |
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> sticks the results in /opt/<whatever>. |
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> |
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> My experience today with libreoffice-bin has broken my mental model of |
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> how a gentoo "binary" package behaves. |
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> |
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> While trying to debug some broken behavior in the (non-binary) localc |
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> spreadsheet app, I decided to install libreoffice-bin as an experiment. |
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> |
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> The libreoffice-bin package wanted to drag in dozens of other non-binary |
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> gentoo packages before it would install itself, and even caused a blocker |
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> between two different versions of poppler. (I said "no" because I thought |
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> the blocker would make the entire experiment fail in the end.) |
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> |
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> Any thoughts from you gentoo gurus would be most appreciated. |
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"binary package" is a fuzzy definition. It's a package that can be |
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compiled (i.e. not purely shell scripts) but for whatever reason that is |
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not viable for a large enough number of users. So a precompiled version |
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is made available, and this is what we call a binary. |
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Example reasons could be license restrictions that forbid redistributing |
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sources (eg nvidia-drivers), or the damn thing just takes too bloody |
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long to build (libreoffice). |
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Either way, a binary package still has to work in the larger Gentoo |
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ecosystem. It still has deps, blockers, even devs who commit bugs. |
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"A completely self-contained package that can never interfere with |
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another package" is NOT part of the definition, and reading between the |
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lines I think you might have a part of that thinking lurking around in |
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your mental model. |
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Binary packages are more prone to break stuff than non-binary packages |
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when viewing as a group. A binary package from a vendor may require |
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specific versions of deps, or require a dep be built with certain config |
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options for example - this can so easily interfere with what you already |
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have installed and your choice of USE. With source packages, we can |
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often work around this easily and patch stuff. With binary packages we |
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all too often cannot and are stuck. |
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Add in the Gentoo attitude where binary packages are the evil step-child |
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that only serve expediency and the devs mostly won't change things to |
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accomodate binary packages, and what you ran into is actually quite common. |
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If you want to use a binary package, be prepared to compromise and |
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change your system to accommodate it, as the other way round is often |
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unfeasible. |
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-- |
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Alan McKinnon |
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alan.mckinnon@×××××.com |
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