Re: [gentoo-user] mdev + xorg + Gnome up and running. :-)

[Walter Dnes]

On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 08:41:48AM +0700, Pandu Poluan wrote

> Hmmm... are you planning to host an overlay?
>
> If so, I'll be willing to donate some of my time to provide some patched
> ebuilds for packages that can function without udev but lazily specify
> DEPEND=sys-fs/udev...

  I wouldn't call it "lazy".  Before the hulabaloo about udev/initramfs,
I don't think anybody was running mdev on Gentoo.  So there was no need
for mdev in the ebuilds.  The only non-embedded distro to use mdev was
Alpine linux.  And they also use uclibc.

  I'm not familiar with the server side of things.  I can follow
instructions if supplied.  I don't know if the hosting provider I'm
thinking of does rsync.  I never theought to ask.

  I'll check on the dev list about the etiquitte regarding contacting
upstream.  Even if a package works today with mdev, there's no guarantee
about tomorrow.  It'll help if upstream knows that people are using
their packages with mdev, and they take that into account when updating
the software.

  Note that my request for updating virtual/dev-manager went through OK.
Once we test a "udev-required" package with mdev, and confirm it works,
we should post a request on the Gentoo bugzilla to update Gentoo's
ebuild.

> ... and while at it, let's see if I can make a package containing
> scripts to ease transitioning from udev to mdev. Maybe call it,
> sys-utils/mdev-helper?

  The kernel reconfig and rebuild, and sticking "init=/sbin/linuxrc"
into the append line are user-specific.  I dual-boot 2 kernels
("production" and "experimental"), and I run lilo.  Somebody with only
one kernel, and/or running GRUB will need to do things differently.  So
a script won't help.  This is simple enough to copy+paste from docs
to your terminal.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@××××××××.org>