Re: [gentoo-user] package conflict on update

[Trenton Adams]

Interesting viewpoint, and some of the things you say do have
relevance Holly.  Thanks.  But, I still think things should be a
little easier for the average user.  I'm really sick of the windows
admins who *think* linux is hard, when it's really not, and bash it
all the time because of that.  I'm all for converting them. :)

On 1/7/06, Holly Bostick <motub@××××××.nl> wrote:
> Trenton Adams schreef:
> > Oops, forgot to reply to everything.
> >
> > On 1/6/06, Holly Bostick <motub@××××××.nl> wrote:
> >
> >> Trenton Adams schreef:
> >>
> >>> On 1/5/06, Neil Bothwick <neil@××××××××××.uk> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> On Thu, 5 Jan 2006 16:32:20 -0700, Trenton Adams wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>> something like
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> if_blocked_by('openmotif') ewarn "You must unmerge
> >>>>>> openmotif before proceeding"
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Yes, or as follows...
> >>>>>
> >>>>> if_blocked_by('openmotif') auto_unmerge('openmotif') #
> >>>>> continue with merge which should automatically be merging
> >>>>> openmotif anyhow.
> >>>>
> >>>> Absolutely not! I don't want portage removing something I may
> >>>> be using at the time without my saying so.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Good point.  Perhaps it should ask then?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >> Well, it does, by stopping and waiting for you to perform an action
> >> and either restart the stopped process (if the action you took was
> >> to unmerge the blocking package), or to forego the stopped process
> >> entirely,  if you choose not to remove the blocked package because
> >> you want to keep it for whatever reason (it could happen).
> >>
> >> You're assuming that unmerging the blocking package is *always* the
> >>  right solution for everyone at all times (in this case, it's not
> >> really relevant, since motif-config will itself re-install
> >> openmotif), but the point of Gentoo is that you are in control. If
> >> I am in control, then I have to decide what I want done in each
> >> particular situation that occurs, which is exactly what I have to
> >> do with the current setup-- very obviously, since Portage will stop
> >> until I make a decision and act on it. So fine, your new updated
> >> Portage informs me there's a block, and says, "I could do this to
> >> solve it, shall I?" I myself am going to say "no", because I want
> >> to know the nature of the block, and how Portage's proposed action
> >> is going to affect the system that I have carefully customized to
> >> my individual needs.
> >
> >
> > Yes, flexibility is GREAT.  That's one reason I really like gentoo,
> > and linux in general.  However, I also like simplicity, or should I
> > say, I like to have the choice.  So, one could easily make gentoo
> > have auto-detect and handle features, while allowing configuration
> > changes that disable automatic behaviour.  You could have individual
> > enable/disable options for each feature, as well as one global
> > feature than enables/disables all auto-detect features.  Then you
> > could have include/excludes for each feature so that the global would
> > not override them.
> >
> > So, the bottom line is this, one person says that things are
> > difficult because they need to be, in order to be flexible.  But I
> > say that if things are truly flexible, then it should also be
> > possible to make them automatic, or simple.  That's what I call
> > ULTIMATE flexiblity, which is what I mentioned in another post that I
> > made.  When I originally started with gentoo linux, I read the part
> > about why gentoo linux came about.  Basically it was all about doing
> > things the way you want.  Well, I like the flexiblity, but I also
> > want the simplicity. :) Let us have the simplicity of RedHat, and
> > RPMs (waiting for flames), but with flexibility as well.
>
> Well, if this is your opinion, I must then accept the burden of being
> one of those members of the Linux community you mention
>
> Trenton Adams schreef:
>
> > Yes, and I've noticed there's a big problem with the linux community
> > at large.  People that know and understand linux have a lot of the
> > times not helped the "open source" intiative, in that they like
> > things to be difficult,
>
> Although this is not strictly true.... I don't *like* things to be
> difficult, /per se/ but I do tend to do things "the hard way" rather
> than "the easy way"
>
> > because it makes them somehow seem smarter.  In all reality, it
> > doesn't take a genius to use linux, just someone who likes to read a
> > whole lot.
>
> I do like to read a whole lot (always have), and I don't so much care
> how smart anyone thinks I am, but if I am in any way smart, I do want
> that to be recognized, which is a different thing.
>
> But if you leave out the rather insulting insinuation that such users
> are not in fact smart, but ego-trippers who just have nothing to do but
> read dry technical texts that no "normal" person would ever bother with,
> I'll cop to the charge.
>
> The thing is, I prefer things to be slightly more difficult because I
> believe that people using advanced tools should have a clue about how
> they work and how to use them properly.
>
> As I have said before, and will likely say again in the future, I
> believe that a policy of providing advanced technology, dumbed-down so
> that it "Just Works" to the "unwashed masses" (let us say, my
> boyfriend's grandmother, who is a very nice lady, or my aunt, or his
> mother, who are of an age and about the same level of computer expertise
> and interest-- which is to say, "none", although my bf's mother has now
> had a computer forced on her), is dangerously unwise.
>
> We have seen the results of doing so in both large and small ways, yet
> we persist. I believe that advanced technology should be sufficiently
> difficult to use until such time as it is "safe" (if it ever is) that
> people who don't want to think at all won't use it, to be frank. Because
> I don't want someone who doesn't want to think to be in control of
> advanced technology or tools whose misuse may well impact me (these are
> "advanced tools", after all, and that is one of the qualities that makes
> them "advanced"-- a wide range of impact), even if I never know that
> person, and never will.
>
> At least I know me, and at least if I rain destruction on my PC and my
> network, it's my own fault. I'm willing to take responsibility for that.
> I'm not willing to trust faceless developers at RedHat (or SuSE/Novell,
> or even Mandriva) with these responsibilities. On the other hand, I am
> willing to trust the Gentoo devs to a much greater degree, because 1)
> they *share* their knowledge freely (so I know what they're doing, if I
> can understand it); 2) they welcome my contribution/participation in
> what they are doing, in fact recommend it; and most importantly, 3) they
> draw and respect boundaries, beyond which I am expected to take
> responsibility for myself... which is how a good parent/administrator
> trains children/"average users" to become competent and knowledgeable
> adults/users.
>
> Something I've always remembered is that when I was learning to drive,
> the Department of Motor Vehicles required that all proposed licensees
> had to take this class where we watched a film about the evils of
> drinking and driving I think it was. In any case, the instructor said,
> "Most people on the road are not /drivers/. They are /operators of
> vehicles/." The difference being that operators of vehicles can get the
> vehicle from Point A to Point B, but don't really understand much about
> the complex interaction between the advanced technological tool they are
> operating (which they likely also know little about), the environment
> they are operating in, where other advanced technological tools are also
> operating, the impact of their operation on the (possibly incompetent)
> opertation of the others in the environment, and how the environment
> itself has been shaped specifically to make managing the interaction of
> all these elements and various random, unpredictable variables as smooth
> as possible, so that the goal can be reached-- all of which a driver
> would/must have a greater sense of. He proposed to set us on the path to
> being drivers, rather than operators of vehicles.
>
> Gentoo has a similar philosophy in the computer field. I can get your
> point about "ULTIMATE flexibility", but in the real world, in many
> fields, you are supposed to learn the hard way (learn the rules first)
> before you may take the easy way (break the rules), if you then choose
> to do so. And we all know that "most people", offered the choice of an
> easy way and a hard way are going to take the easy way *all the time*,
> and thus flail around in relative ignorance for the rest of their days.
>
> Which is exactly what I'm against-- ignorance. No, I don't want Gentoo
> to be all that "easy". But not because I want to put myself up as better
> than anybody-- I'm not in fact better than anybody. $DEITY knows, Neil
> knows way more than me, and even he makes mistakes :-) . But you can't
> learn if you don't try, and you can't try if you don't get the chance
> (because everything is so "easy" that you never have the opportunity).
>
> And I want to learn. I don't want to be ignorant. And I don't want
> Gentoo to "do it for me" until I know enough to know what letting it do
> so means-- at which point letting it do it for me is completely
> irrelevant (though possibly convienient in some situations), since by
> that time I know enough that what it's going to automatically could be
> done manually by me in the same amount of or possibly less time.
>
> So I am of the opinion that, as I said before, this is a cosmetic issue.
> If the devs have time to code a tool that will give more comprehensive
> output about the nature of any given block, and propose solutions that I
> can choose to accept or not, that's all very nice, as I said.
>
> But the X amount of time that it takes them to do that is about the same
> X amount of time that it takes me to just look the information up myself
> (the time it takes me to decide is unchanged, since I have to do that
> either way), and frankly, I'd rather that the devs spent that X amount
> of time doing something more substantive to enhancing my Gentoo experience.
>
> Maybe it's just me.
>
> Holly
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