Re: [gentoo-user] Re: anti-portage wreckage?

[Mike Myers]

On 1/2/07, Alan McKinnon <alan@××××××××××××××××.za> wrote:
>
> On Monday 01 January 2007 04:34, Mike Myers wrote:
> > The update system is the -only- nice thing about it over Gentoo.
> > Debian is nowhere near Gentoo when it comes to everything else
> > (especially docs). I don't think suggesting a single feature that
> > another distro has and putting into Gentoo is trying to make it a
> > clone. I'm just asking for a relief from having to constantly worry
> > if updating something out of the 300 packages that need updated is
> > going to break something, and not having to make sure etc-update
> > isn't going to destroy my custom configs afterwards. If it wasn't
> > for that, Gentoo would be perfect. I'm sure there's got to be others
> > that would agree.
>
> At this point it might be helpful to revisit what gentoo really *is* in
> engineering terms
>
> Gentoo is not an off-the-shelf, commodity, we-do-everything-for-you and
> you don't have to think (much) distro, it's in a completely different
> class. The devs have given up the ability to configure things a certain
> way and handed that control over to you. You get increased
> customizability but have to pay the price of increased knowledge and
> responsibility, including that you get to keep both pieces when you
> break it.



What I was suggesting wouldn't take away from that at all.

Red Hat and Ubuntu can do all these tests for you, the gentoo devs can't
> (except in some very broad cases like package-1.0 is config-file
> incompatible with package-2.x), so we gentoo-users have to do these
> tests ourselves.


I don't completely disagree.  But, I would just like to at least be aware
that I am testing something and that I can half expect it to break.  Like,
then otherwise what's the point of using ~x86 if x86 is still testing?  If
I'm using x86, I don't see why it's so wrong, (or against the Gentoo
philosophy as it seems to be) to expect a reasonably stable system
(obviously not perfectly stable).

Remember the old joke: "We can make it cheaply, quickly, correctly. Pick
> any two." You have a case like this, maybe it's time to just get over
> it :-)


I'll have to remember that one :P

alan
>
>
> --
> gentoo-user@g.o mailing list
>
>

Gentoo has release cycles anyway, like 2006.0, 2006.1, etc.  So why is it so
much to ask to use those profiles to actually be used to deal with updates?
It's apparently being discussed by the devs anyway.  Although, when I ask
about such a feature I feel as though I'm somehow threatening the Gentoo
community or philosophy with some kind of ticking time bomb or something.
It's not like adding one feature towards stability is going to cause people
to confuse Gentoo with Red Hat or something just totally insane and left
field.  I'd rather see something like this though than something like random
ebuilds being redesigned somehow and breaking randomly because something was
slotted out of the blue, or went modular and now has to build 600 packages.
I guess my main concern is simply the randomness of the portage tree.  If
'tree versions' were actually implemented, like what is/was being discussed,
then that issue would dissolve.  This would also give users more options,
which from what I understand is the Gentoo philosophy.  They could have a
'testing' tree where it's up to date as possible like the current method, or
they could use a released tree.  Where the packages in that tree suffer no
major changes (like going modular or virtual) or go from one branch (or
"slot") to another with an emerge -u* world.