Re: [gentoo-user] Re: --depclean wants to remove openrc. Yikes!

[Rich Freeman]

On Sun, Jul 25, 2021 at 2:05 PM Alan Mackenzie <acm@×××.de> wrote:
>
> OK, so you're clever and you know this.  You know to do the
> couter-intuitive thing of putting @system packages into @world.  Less
> clever people like me follow the handbook, and assume that packages in
> @system are protected.  Putting init-systems into @world is an unnatural
> thing to do, and must be construed as a workaround for deficiencies in
> portage.

I think you're really conflating the package manager with how some
virtuals/ebuilds are configured.  Portage shouldn't have
service-manager-specific functionality.  Nor should it do things like
never uninstall things that packages say aren't needed just in case
you might still be using them, when you run it with --depclean which
basically is supposed to have it remove the stuff that isn't needed.

All protage does is follow the dependencies.

I think there is room for discussing whether daemontools should be
treated as a service manager by default.  I've never used it and can't
speak to how it is typically used.  You might want to talk to the
maintainers of it to get their thoughts.

> No, I did not make that mistake.  I simply assumed, not entirely
> consciously, that Gentoo would not destroy my system without me
> specifically asking it to.

It isn't like uninstalling openrc is going to "destroy your system".
Worst case you could always just pass init=/bin/bash or whatever to
the kernel and just reinstall it.  Granted, it wouldn't really be
welcome behavior.

> It would be saner still to be kept in the system file (whatever that
> might be).

I suppose you might not care to hear that I've advocated a few times
that the "system file" should disappear entirely and no packages
should get special treatment.  :)  Granted, that has more to do with
how assumed dependencies work in the repository.  I don't really have
a problem with confirmation before removing certain packages because
reinstalling them can be quite painful.  The service manager actually
is one of the easier ones to fix.  If you break the ability to
bootstrap gcc/etc that can be a real bugger to fix.

Really though posting on this list and successfully winning every
argument with everybody who replies is going to do zero to change this
behavior, because it is unlikely that anybody involved in this
particular issue reads this list.  It would make more sense to chat
with the daemontools maintainer and get their thoughts on how the
virtual ought to be configured as a starting point.  You could always
try for a second opinion/etc if that doesn't work.  Plus the
conversation would probably help you understand what their thinking
was.

-- 
Rich