Re: [gentoo-user] package conflict on update

[Holly Bostick]

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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