What needs to be improved in Gentoo?

[Roman_Gruber]

What needs to be improved?

1) If I emerge my system then it writes:

and then it complains about
missing -- in the command which it suggest before, please look at it and correct it. It´s a matter of 5 minutes or so.
This should be corrected
It results then in the command: find /etc -iname '*._cfg????*'
After emerging my system, it tells me, that i have to correct the config files, and if i don´t know i have to enter a command, in which -- is missing.

please see below, thanks

2) the emerge command needs an option, that deletes distfiles, which are not currently installed. I don´t want to delete 5 GB and then download 3 GB. Thats insane and not fair to the people, who pays the server. There must be an easy option like
emerge --clean_distfiles.
I mean the directory usr/portage/distfiles . There are to many files, which are not installed currently on my system and should not be there, because they take a lot of harddisk space.

[Genone]

What needs to be improved?

1) If I emerge my system then it writes:
emerge ....

and then it complains about

missing -- in the command which it suggest before, please look at it and correct it. It´s a matter of 5 minutes or so.

This should be corrected

Sorry, don't quite understand your problem, could you give an actual example (with exact output)?

2) the emerge command needs an option, that deletes distfiles, which are not currently installed. I don´t want to delete 5 GB and then download 3 GB. Thats insane and not fair to the people, who pays the server. There must be an easy option like
emerge --clean_distfiles.
I mean the directory usr/portage/distfiles . There are to many files, which are not installed currently on my system and should not be there, because they take a lot of harddisk space.

app-portage/gentoolkit - eclean

[Roman_Gruber]

Thanks for your help.

Code: Select all

eclean --destructive distfiles 

has deleted 700MB. THANKS. That i was looking for.


Here is a example, which i mentioned before:

x11-apps/ati-drivers-extra
selected: 8.27.10
protected: 8.29.6
omitted: none

>>> 'Selected' packages are slated for removal.
>>> 'Protected' and 'omitted' packages will not be removed.

>>> Waiting 5 seconds before starting...
>>> (Control-C to abort)...
>>> Unmerging in: 5 4 3 2 1
>>> Unmerging x11-apps/ati-drivers-extra-8.27.10...
No package files given... Grabbing a set.
--- !mtime obj /usr/share/pixmaps/ati.xpm
--- !mtime obj /usr/share/applications/fireglcontrol.desktop
--- !mtime obj /opt/ati/bin/fireglcontrol
--- !mtime obj /opt/ati/bin/fgl_glxgears
--- !empty dir /usr/share/pixmaps
--- !empty dir /usr/share/applications
--- !empty dir /usr/share
--- !empty dir /usr
--- !empty dir /opt/ati/bin
--- !empty dir /opt/ati
--- !empty dir /opt
>>> Regenerating /etc/ld.so.cache...
>>> Auto-cleaning packages...

>>> No outdated packages were found on your system.


* Regenerating GNU info directory index...
* Processed 223 info files.
* IMPORTANT: 1 config files in /etc need updating.
* Type emerge --help config to learn how to update config files.

notebook roman # emerge --help config
*** Deprecated use of action 'config', use '--config' instead
Config file management support (preliminary)

Portage has a special feature called "config file protection". The purpose of
this feature is to prevent new package installs from clobbering existing
configuration files. By default, config file protection is turned on for /etc
and the KDE configuration dirs; more may be added in the future.

When Portage installs a file into a protected directory tree like /etc, any
existing files will not be overwritten. If a file of the same name already
exists, Portage will change the name of the to-be-installed file from 'foo' to
'._cfg0000_foo'. If '._cfg0000_foo' already exists, this name becomes
'._cfg0001_foo', etc. In this way, existing files are not overwritten,
allowing the administrator to manually merge the new config files and avoid any
unexpected changes.

In addition to protecting overwritten files, Portage will not delete any files
from a protected directory when a package is unmerged. While this may be a
little bit untidy, it does prevent potentially valuable config files from being
deleted, which is of paramount importance.

Protected directories are set using the CONFIG_PROTECT variable, normally
defined in /etc/make.globals. Directory exceptions to the CONFIG_PROTECTed
directories can be specified using the CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK variable. To find
files that need to be updated in /etc, type:

# find /etc -iname '._cfg????_*'

You can disable this feature by setting CONFIG_PROTECT="-*" in /etc/make.conf.
Then, Portage will mercilessly auto-update your config files. Alternatively,
you can leave Config File Protection on but tell Portage that it can overwrite
files in certain specific /etc subdirectories. For example, if you wanted
Portage to automatically update your rc scripts and your wget configuration,
but didn't want any other changes made without your explicit approval, you'd
add this to /etc/make.conf:

CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/wget /etc/rc.d"

Tools such as dispatch-conf, cfg-update, and etc-update are also available to
aid in the merging of these files. They provide interactive merging and can
auto-merge trivial changes.


notebook roman #

Code: Select all

emerge --help config 

should be corrected
emerge --help --config

[Icer]

Thanks for your help.
zap ...

Code: Select all

emerge --help config 

should be corrected
emerge --help --config

Uhh, I'd rather have it so that you wouldnt need to type any of the '-' characters. For example some time ago 'emerge info' worked ok. It still does work, except that it now prints with ugly red font that this syntax is deprecated. I assume that the new syntax is based on some standard. Anyway I still prefer the old syntax.

[Corona688]

Uhh, I'd rather have it so that you wouldnt need to type any of the '-' characters.

The problem is, this syntax is ambiguous. What happens when someone adds a package named config? Will it install the package, or do whatever --config means?

I had this problem when I needed to update rsync. emerge rsync just did an emerge --sync. Infuriating. I had to do the =dir/packagename stuff to tell it what I really wanted.

So the old syntax may be what you're used to, but the --flag syntax really is better.

[Genone]

Uhh, I'd rather have it so that you wouldnt need to type any of the '-' characters.

The problem is, this syntax is ambiguous. What happens when someone adds a package named config? Will it install the package, or do whatever --config means?

Exactly. The other potential solutions would have been even more annoying.

[Icer]

Uhh, I'd rather have it so that you wouldnt need to type any of the '-' characters.

The problem is, this syntax is ambiguous. What happens when someone adds a package named config? Will it install the package, or do whatever --config means?

I had this problem when I needed to update rsync. emerge rsync just did an emerge --sync. Infuriating. I had to do the =dir/packagename stuff to tell it what I really wanted.

So the old syntax may be what you're used to, but the --flag syntax really is better.

Now that you explained it I agree that the new syntax is better. And the only problem I really had with this was that I was indeed used to the old syntax, as you said. Old habits die hard as they say...

[steveL]

From IRC, diilbertAtWork, suggested using the Standard Build Unit as a metric.

[bubbl07]

To continue my previous comment, add in a man_page & info_page USE flags, so that anything you get will be one or the other (also would help reduce system size slightly. Would be handy for like, LiveCDs )

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FEATURES="noman noinfo"

Wow, had no idea that was possible. Thanks for the heads up. The man page for make.conf had even more options I didn't even realize.

[Omega21]

I hate split ebuilds.

[boniek]

Is it possible to automate revdep-rebuild -X, but just only after api,abi breaking package was emerged? I think It would require new variable inside of such problematic ebuild.
What about apg-get latest hot feature namely autoremove? I would really want to see something like that in portage!
Also what about some way to manage efficiently etc-update on dozens of machines running Gentoo?

Gentoo is near-perfect for me. Things I would change:
Logo
I don't hate the cow
but I don't like cows.

There is also hidden in shadow of Larry and long forgotten Knurt the flying saucer

[Icer]

Is it possible to automate revdep-rebuild -X, but just only after api,abi breaking package was emerged? I think It would require new variable inside of such problematic ebuild.
What about apg-get latest hot feature namely autoremove? I would really want to see something like that in portage!
Also what about some way to manage efficiently etc-update on dozens of machines running Gentoo?

Gentoo is near-perfect for me. Things I would change:
Logo
I don't hate the cow
but I don't like cows.

There is also hidden in shadow of Larry and long forgotten Knurt the flying saucer

Heh, so the flying saucer is kind of another Gentoo logo? Nice.

How would that autoremove work? I've not heard about it.

[boniek]

Well it basically removes package with all its dependecies unless they are used by other package. It helps to keep your system clean.

[Icer]

Ahh, well it would be a good feature. You might want to see the user reps forum. There's a thread you might be interested in: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-510844.html

[Lo!Mm]

I'd REALLY LIKE to see package keywords on emerge verbose list output. Something like this:

[ebuild R ] sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.6.19-r5 x86 USE="-build -symlink" 0 kB
[ebuild R ] sys-apps/suspend2-userui-0.7.0 M~x86 USE="fbsplash -static" 0 kB
[ebuild R ] app-office/kivio-1.6.1 ~x86 USE="arts xinerama -debug" 0 kB

[procelain]

@Lo!Mm: isn't eix enough? And if you really want to see what packages would be drawn in by ~x86 try something like

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 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge -pv gentoo-sources 

Ok, now my proposal:

Though I'm not somebody with limited bandwidth, I am always reluctant to erase the dists in /usr/portage/distfiles. But as my system runs longer and longer, the distfiles get more and more - and my harddrive is unfortunately not infinitely large. So what I would need would be a portage feature, that removes old distfiles when new ones have already been downloaded and thus are outdated.
I'm not sure, how much effort one had to put into such a feature, but it would also reduce bandwidth use for the gentoo mirrors, if users would more adopt a you-don't-have-to-delete-as-it-won't-grow-larger-than-8GB-and-I-don't-bother-about-those-lousy-gigs-behaviour.
I would love it!

[bmichaelsen]

For those complaining about etc-update / dispatch-conf you might give etc-proposals a testdrive.

[b11n]

@Lo!Mm: isn't eix enough? And if you really want to see what packages would be drawn in by ~x86 try something like

Code: Select all

 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge -pv gentoo-sources 

Ok, now my proposal:

Though I'm not somebody with limited bandwidth, I am always reluctant to erase the dists in /usr/portage/distfiles. But as my system runs longer and longer, the distfiles get more and more - and my harddrive is unfortunately not infinitely large. So what I would need would be a portage feature, that removes old distfiles when new ones have already been downloaded and thus are outdated.
I'm not sure, how much effort one had to put into such a feature, but it would also reduce bandwidth use for the gentoo mirrors, if users would more adopt a you-don't-have-to-delete-as-it-won't-grow-larger-than-8GB-and-I-don't-bother-about-those-lousy-gigs-behaviour.
I would love it!

++
What I've done in the past is emerge -f world, (from my local distfiles mirror), then clear out my mirror and copy /usr/portage/distfiles back there. Pretty clunky, but it's kept the size down.

[dol-sen]

There already is a feature for cleaning out the distfiles directory.

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emerge app-portage/gentoolkit
man elcean

There are also other scripts available on these forums for cleaning the distfiles directory.

There are a number of other very useful tools included in gentoolkit. Some of them may eventually make into portage itself.

[bmichaelsen]

There already is a feature for cleaning out the distfiles directory.

Code: Select all

emerge app-portage/gentoolkit
man elcean

There are also other scripts available on these forums for cleaning the distfiles directory.

There are a number of other very useful tools included in gentoolkit. Some of them may eventually make into portage itself.

Actually, it would be a gerat idea to have an current overview of all the tools available around portage - for example in the GWN.