Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: hasufell <hasufell@g.o>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Portage performance dropped considerably
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 03:19:13
Message-Id: 52E721A8.5050805@gentoo.org
In Reply to: [gentoo-user] Re: Portage performance dropped considerably by Martin Vaeth
1 On 01/28/2014 02:34 AM, Martin Vaeth wrote:
2 > hasufell <hasufell@g.o> wrote:
3 >>
4 >> On 01/27/2014 12:26 AM, William Hubbs wrote:
5 >>>
6 >>> No, starting with USE="-*" is very dangerous.
7 >>
8 >> That's nonsense imo
9 >
10 > No, William is completely right.
11 >
12 >> and I use that setup on multiple servers/routers without any issues.
13 >
14 > No one doubts that it is *possible* to add the correct USE for
15 > every single package manually, but it is not a good idea to hide
16 > the recommended defaults.
17 >
18
19 As someone who writes those recommendations, I disagree. That's why many
20 of my packages don't have a lot of them, because I don't like them in
21 the first place. Another nice thing you can do is mess with USE_ORDER.
22 And now don't tell me that is another bad idea. This is Gentoo.
23
24 >> It makes sense because you have the most minimal setup possible
25 >
26 > This is not true, to start with: For instance, USE=minimal will
27 > usually choose a more minimal setup.
28 > With "-*" you will actually *disable* the default USE=minimal
29 > for e.g. www-client/firefox, x11-apps/startx, sys-block/blocks,
30 > dev-db/unixODBC, ... and thus get a setup which is even larger
31 > than the recommended default.
32 >
33
34 USE="-* minimal"
35
36 >> most minimal codepaths possible which reduces exposure to bugs.
37 >
38 > No, you usually get less tested (and by upstream considered untypical)
39 > codepaths which actually increases the probability to hit a bug
40 > nobody did hit/test yet.
41 >
42
43 Many defaults gentoo sets do not have anything to do with default
44 codepaths upstream has tested. So this argument works both ways.
45 Especially after a profile is activated.
46
47 > The USE="-*" approach was reasonable before EAPI=1 was introduced:
48 > In these days, unusual codepaths would have been set by "negative"
49 > USE-flags, e.g. IUSE="nocxx" for gcc.
50 > Nowadays, the upstream-recommended codepaths are set by default-USE-Flags
51 > in the ebuild, i.e. now the same is called IUSE="+cxx" in gcc.
52 > Using -* you disable such defaults which are usually there for a
53 > good reason.
54
55 As above, our defaults are not necessarily following upstream
56 recommendations/defaults. Apache alone should make you think about that
57 claim.
58
59 >
60 > Of course, if you know and care what every single USE-flags for every
61 > single package does, it does not matter much which approach you take,
62 > but I would guess that even in this case you need more exceptions
63 > in /etc/portage/package.use with USE="-*" than with USE="".
64 >
65
66 I made the opposite experience.
67
68 > Moreover, even for updates, it happens occassionally that a package
69 > gets an additional USE-flag, whose default is then usually chosen in
70 > such a way as the behaviour was before - so you risk dropping
71 > crucial behaviour on updates if you are not very careful.
72 >
73
74 I am careful. The amount of crucial packages on my servers are not that
75 big and I definitely watch _any_ update, unless I want a mysql update to
76 break hell.
77
78
79 Besides, if a useflag combination breaks something unexpectedly (e.g.
80 the build or unrelated features) then it's a bug (minimum is to
81 communicate the situation via elog). If disabling one useflag breaks the
82 whole package, then it's a bug. That's something the packager has to
83 care about and arch testers usually run all(or most?) useflag
84 permutations before stabilizing.
85 There is no excuse. Every other "breakage" is expected, because I have
86 disabled the features.
87 The power of useflags imply that I can mix them up any way I want. All
88 of those mixtures must be supported by the maintainer, unless he warns
89 the user about it through the ebuild, masks the useflag or sets an
90 appropriate REQUIRED_USE constraint. Otherwise... it's a bug.

Replies

Subject Author
[gentoo-user] Re: Portage performance dropped considerably Martin Vaeth <martin@×××××.de>