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pfaut
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 1:11 am    Post subject: Gentoo is broken Reply with quote

I let my system go too long without an update. In trying to fix things I screwed it up so bad I had to start over. So although this system has been running gentoo for many years this should be considered a fresh installation.

I've been having nothing but trouble with getting this system setup. Between related packages wanting different USE flag settings an circular dependencies I've probably lost a couple of hours. I won't even mention the udev change that forced me of the first time to use an initramfs.

I used to like gentoo but this stuff is getting to be a bit too much work.

The circular dependencies have me baffled. How can package A depend on package B and package B depend on package A? This sounds like the way Microsoft writes software. There's something seriously wrong here.

Now I've come to a situation where one installed package wants apache to be installed with threads and another wants it installed without. So I decided to back up for a second and see how consistent the current settings are. I try 'emerge -auvDN system' and it tells me I have conflicting packages installed. Somehow both kmod and modutils got installed. How did that happen? I didn't ask for either of them.

I don't remember ever having so much trouble with USE flags and package conflicts but I know it was getting worse when I stopped performing updates. The fact that my system has problems after a fresh install says a lot about the current state of gentoo.

And I haven't even gotten to kde yet.

Excuse me, I just needed to vent.
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Navar
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 5:16 am    Post subject: Re: Gentoo is broken Reply with quote

pfaut wrote:
I've been having nothing but trouble with getting this system setup. Between related packages wanting different USE flag settings an circular dependencies I've probably lost a couple of hours. I won't even mention the udev change that forced me of the first time to use an initramfs.

I used to like gentoo but this stuff is getting to be a bit too much work.

Well, a lot of what you're finding issue with isn't Gentoo specific. My last new install was in November where I only got slightly bit because of documentation falling behind on some rapid changes along with multilib vs non-multilib. I sometimes toy around with 2-5 other major distributions just to get a feel for how bad things aren't. And not keeping your system semi-uptodate is always fraught with being a challenge, but rarely 'impossible' except in extreme cases. So far your theme is falling into udev upgrade headaches.

pfaut wrote:

The circular dependencies have me baffled. How can package A depend on package B and package B depend on package A? This sounds like the way Microsoft writes software. There's something seriously wrong here.

Strange comparison. Microsoft for many years has focused design on the more obfuscated manners possible to hide everything away from their continually treated dumber user. Anyway, your issue mentioned is often caused due to USE settings and portage probably already mentioned that to you in regards to the circular dependency issues. They can be somewhat annoying to run into, but are mostly rare. You can search for circular here and most likely find your issue already resolved in one of the many other solved threads.

pfaut wrote:

I try 'emerge -auvDN system' and it tells me I have conflicting packages installed. Somehow both kmod and modutils got installed. How did that happen? I didn't ask for either of them.

Udev upgrade requirements. Kmod replaced sys-apps/module-init-tools and you should have seen a message to that effect. Modutils was just a virtual I believe.

pfaut wrote:

I don't remember ever having so much trouble with USE flags and package conflicts but I know it was getting worse when I stopped performing updates. The fact that my system has problems after a fresh install says a lot about the current state of gentoo.

I understand frustration when things don't go as expected. You posted in a forum where a moderator will most likely move this thread. Either you're actually desiring help or you're just venting before bailing, in which case there's nothing to be done. If you explained actual details of what you needed help with, there's a fair chance others would try to help you along as they have many times. Particularly if you do your part in reading and searching the forums for existing relevant answers first.

pfaut wrote:

And I haven't even gotten to kde yet.

I'm sure if you persevere it'll get installed fine just as it has for others.

pfaut wrote:
Excuse me, I just needed to vent.

Gentoo Chat is a better place for that.
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 6:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Been there, done that. Generally caused by taking shortcuts and changing a lot of use flags a the same time.

But it's not as bad as it seems. As mentioned before, your circulars are resolved by removing the proper use flag. I had this issue once during rebuilding my system (moved from x86 to amd64) because I copied my world file and my /etc directory. There was a circular between openssl and another package - I can't remember which. Reason was I had both use flags active. Solution was removing the use flag which created the dependency to openssl, build the packages, reactive openssl use flag and rebuild with -N.

Concerning your conflicting packages you probably have missed a message from emerge or have to run a emerge --depclean and revdep-rebuild. Missing messages is a problem I got alot during unattended installs, which is why I have installed elogviewer.

As a note for your apache problem: You should check both packages with the different dependencies if you could change a thread use flag.
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 7:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I wouldn't say Gentoo is broken, although sometimes Portage doesn't do what you expect. Case in point: I was attempting to migrate from ffmpeg to libav. Even after uninstalling ffmpeg and installing libav, portage STILL wanted to uninstall libav and reinstall ffmpeg. revdep-rebuild was no help here. Given a choice of installing ffmpeg and uninstalling its blockers, or using what already installed, Portage seemed to prefer the first to the second. So solve it, I added ffmpeg to package.mask to get portage to do the "right" thing.

While portage might be able to be improved somewhat in this regard, there a limit that can be done: Portage can't read minds, and resolving dependences is (NP) hard . There will be situation where the only thing the user can do is "walk" the dependency tree to determine where portage is getting stuck at, then take the appropate action (either uninstalling the package, changing the USE flags, masking it, upgrading just that package by itself and retrying the merge with the newly upgrade package, and so forth). At least for most Portage packages, it doesn't have the "chain reaction" problem other ones do - just try needing an update from 1 package in Fedora Rawhide and it'll pull dozens (or more!) of others packages!

Maybe a /etc/portage/package.hint file should be added so users can help give Portage a hand when it gets confused.
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I reinstalled my entire system about two days ago, and i haven't found any nasty bumps. ( I'm addicted to gentoo reinstallations )
Well, apart from failing to install gnome 3 because of blocking packages, etc etc, but then again... i'm happy with gnome2.

The secret, i think, is doing it with time, and patience. never rushing it. Gentoo gives you the power to seriously screw everything, so you must pay attention to what you're doing..

OTOH, if you need any help, we're all here.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 6:23 pm    Post subject: Re: Gentoo is broken Reply with quote

pfaut wrote:
The circular dependencies have me baffled. How can package A depend on package B and package B depend on package A? This sounds like the way Microsoft writes software. There's something seriously wrong here.

I would like to revive this somewhat old thread to support this statement. I am a Gentoo noob, and I have just joined the forum because I've been surprised by the circular dependencies I have seen (and by the complexity of the portage system). I understand that mistakes are always possible, but I'm starting to think there is something different going on.
This page here:

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=2&chap=1

says "This is most likely a bug in the Portage tree". I would say a circular dependency is always a bug, but I'll take the "most likely" for now :) Yet, I am seeing a couple of dependencies that have been known for some time, like the one caused by doc. So I wonder if these dependencies are supposed to be bugs and therefore expected to be solved, or they are normal in Gentoo, which means I have to live with them fiddling with the use flags.

Not really venting, but close :)
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 3:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would say that a circular dependency is always a bug, but it's not Gentoo's fault. If there is a circular dependency in the software tree you're installing, then upstream did not design the code to be built cleanly from scratch. Instead, they assume that some of their code is already on the host environment.

Not only being the height of arrogance, such code is likely not well thought out and a nightmare to maintain and administer.

I strive to not have such software on my systems, and AFAIK I have none.
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 6:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hypnos wrote:
I would say that a circular dependency is always a bug, but it's not Gentoo's fault. If there is a circular dependency in the software tree you're installing, then upstream did not design the code to be built cleanly from scratch. Instead, they assume that some of their code is already on the host environment.

Most circular dependencies aren't directly tied to the actual package, but have to do with plugins, GUIs, documentation and other "extras". I wouldn't call it arrogant if say Qt would use doxygen for API docs, and doxygen used Qt for it's graphical frontend (fictional example).
Even if there is a hard circular dependency in the code you can't always blame the developers for it, given how software evolves these days. If developers of a dependency decide to use a different build system that indirectly depends on your package that's not your fault, and may not even be noticed for quite some time initially.
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 9:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

On a fresh install I usually get a circular dependency with the CUPS flag enabled. Is that your problem, too? Just remove it, install, put it back in, emerge --newuse world, done.
If it is something else, post the output of emerge here and there'll be help.
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 10:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's the beauty of gentoo.
Ask away, there's always an answer ( you just might not like it ;) )
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go4linux
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 4:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Genone wrote:
Most circular dependencies aren't directly tied to the actual package, but have to do with plugins, GUIs, documentation and other "extras". I wouldn't call it arrogant if say Qt would use doxygen for API docs, and doxygen used Qt for it's graphical frontend (fictional example).

True, but you can still fix it, splitting one of the two packages. For example, I can say that the doxygen's dependency on qt is only at the presentation level. I could make a doxygen-core and a doxygen-gui, or something like that. doxygen-core has no dependencies, doxygen-gui depends on doxygen-core and qt, and qt depends on doxygen-core.
That, of course, at the source code level. At the distribution level things probably get a bit more complex. It wouldn't be impossible though.

Genone wrote:
Even if there is a hard circular dependency in the code you can't always blame the developers for it, given how software evolves these days. If developers of a dependency decide to use a different build system that indirectly depends on your package that's not your fault, and may not even be noticed for quite some time initially.

Quite realistic, which is the reason why I asked if these problems should be interpreted as a bug, meaning that they are more or less efficiently resolved if reported.

Clad in Sky wrote:
On a fresh install I usually get a circular dependency with the CUPS flag enabled. Is that your problem, too? Just remove it, install, put it back in, emerge --newuse world, done.
If it is something else, post the output of emerge here and there'll be help.

I know there will be :)
I had a couple. I usually like to build code with many features, unless they are a problem or really unneeded. You never know when you need something. That obviously has some consequences in terms of dependency problems.
But my point is that I would like to avoid coming here asking for help, at least for this kind of help. At the moment I'm using debian, and I would like to look at a source based distribution, but I don't have to. I would like to look at means I would like to use, not hack into, or I can go to Linux From Scratch; and that's not my intention. Fixing problems every now and then has to be expected, but I wouldn't like that to be the norm, especially when it's about finding workarounds (like changing the use variable) for problems that should be mostly (to say the least) considered bugs.
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 5:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Moved from Portage & Programming to Gentoo Chat.

Not a support question.
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 6:16 pm    Post subject: Re: Gentoo is broken Reply with quote

pfaut wrote:
I let my system go too long without an update. In trying to fix things I screwed it up so bad I had to start over. So although this system has been running gentoo for many years this should be considered a fresh installation.


Linux changes over that time span; software from back in the day is no longer compatible with software from today, so an upgrade is nearly equal to having to start over. If you count up all the updates you have missed out on, you effectively have a big update that updates just about anything.

pfaut wrote:
I've been having nothing but trouble with getting this system setup. Between related packages wanting different USE flag settings an circular dependencies I've probably lost a couple of hours. I won't even mention the udev change that forced me of the first time to use an initramfs.


Please try to ask for support when you do next time; this makes you more aware of what's going on in the Linux world, as well as helps you base on experience from people whom had this before.

And if it something's not possible; then, the developers definitely want to look into how this could be solved to work for you.

pfaut wrote:
I used to like gentoo but this stuff is getting to be a bit too much work.


That's just the side effect of not updating often.

pfaut wrote:
The circular dependencies have me baffled. How can package A depend on package B and package B depend on package A? This sounds like the way Microsoft writes software. There's something seriously wrong here.


Can you remember which circular dependencies these were? We try to avoid them wherever possible. So, it's probably a rather specific case you have ran into...

Yes, some software exists that depends on one another; for example, in Eclipse they do not build the software but incrementally rebuild the plugins instead (see http://thume.ca/2013/03/29/contributing-to-eclipse/). Once you get down this binary nature, you can reuse compiled entities that way; from a perspective where you build from source, that's a very bad idea. It's why it is hard to package Eclipse for us.

And to bring this thought back to circular dependencies; sometimes a package depends on itself (eg. icedtea), but actually needs another package (eg. icedtea-bin / oracle-jdk-bin / ...) to "bootstrap" it if you don't have this already. A very basic example is that when you install a stage3 you effectively bootstrap GCC, and by doing that you do no longer experience the circular dependency GCC has on itself (assuming you don't use another compiler to build it).

So, while you might point out Microsoft for it; you have to notice that it actually happens in Gentoo Linux too at the very core and in situations with compilers you simply can't avoid it.

pfaut wrote:
Now I've come to a situation where one installed package wants apache to be installed with threads and another wants it installed without.


Are you sure the other one actually wants it without threads?

I've investigated this and there are two situations where this might be the case:

Situation 1: You have www-apache/mod_perl installed:

Code:
 $ grep --include='*.ebuild' -r 'www-servers/apache.*-threads' /usr/portage/
/usr/portage/www-apache/mod_perl/mod_perl-2.0.7.ebuild:   || ( www-servers/apache[-threads] dev-lang/perl[ithreads] )"


Solution: Use dev-lang/perl[ithreads] instead to satisfy this package.

Situation 2: You have a package that wants the "threads" USE flag of apache to be set the same as the package itself.

Solution: Enable threads on the package.

Effectively, you should be able to have it enabled without being forced to disable it.

pfaut wrote:
So I decided to back up for a second and see how consistent the current settings are. I try 'emerge -auvDN system' and it tells me I have conflicting packages installed. Somehow both kmod and modutils got installed. How did that happen? I didn't ask for either of them.


kmod and module-init-tools are two packages that do the same; they both provide module tools that you need (for insmod / lsmod / ...) for external kernel modules, and at some point we switched from m-i-t to kmod and now m-i-t is not even in the Portage tree anymore. There are a lot of threads about this on the forum; which all have the same problem and often the same answer, and that is that as kmod is the preferred way to manage kernel modules that m-i-t should be removed. (emerge -c sys-apps/module-init-tools)

pfaut wrote:
I don't remember ever having so much trouble with USE flags and package conflicts but I know it was getting worse when I stopped performing updates. The fact that my system has problems after a fresh install says a lot about the current state of gentoo.


It actually describes Gentoo; this is pretty much by design, if you come to Gentoo then you are here with the expectation that you plan to micro manage everything as well as making compatible choices, down to the level that you finetune a package to have a certain feature or not. It allows you to combine software to quite a far extent (apps from one DE used in another DE, a minimal fine tuned VLC player as opposed to a heavy installation you would get otherwise, and so on...) which I think are features you not get to see with other distributions. There's a certain level of understanding needed to go through this; and well, once you get through that I think you will be able to more easily debug and figure out the problems you come across.

Like for example the kmod; where does that come from, you can answer that with a tool from gentoolkit:

Code:
 $ equery d kmod
 * These packages depend on kmod:
sys-apps/pciutils-3.2.0 (kmod ? sys-apps/kmod)
sys-apps/systemd-208-r2 (kmod ? >=sys-apps/kmod-14-r1)
virtual/modutils-0 (sys-apps/kmod[tools])


Ah, two allow you to disable the kmod USE flag, but what about virtual/modutils?

Code:
 $ equery d virtual/modutils
app-emulation/virtualbox-modules-4.3.0 (kernel_linux ? virtual/modutils)
x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers-319.49 (kernel_linux ? virtual/modutils)


Ah, that's interesting; so, because I have external modules, I need virtual/modutils and thus kmod so they can be inserted.

(And as the USE flag covers, this only makes sense if the kernel is a Linux kernel.)

pfaut wrote:
And I haven't even gotten to kde yet.

Excuse me, I just needed to vent.


No problem, we've all been there.
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 2:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Genone wrote:
Most circular dependencies aren't directly tied to the actual package, but have to do with plugins, GUIs, documentation and other "extras". I wouldn't call it arrogant if sa

In this fictional example, I would call this a layering violation.

Maybe I'm getting old and persnickety ... :P
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 3:57 am    Post subject: Re: Gentoo is broken Reply with quote

Great answer Tom, thanks. I see a couple of interesting suggestions I might use later, but I would still have a couple of comments

TomWij wrote:
Can you remember which circular dependencies these were? We try to avoid them wherever possible. So, it's probably a rather specific case you have ran into...

appreciate it. I'll see if I can post my circular dependencies problems

TomWij wrote:
Yes, some software exists that depends on one another; for example, in Eclipse they do not build the software but incrementally rebuild the plugins instead (see http://thume.ca/2013/03/29/contributing-to-eclipse/). Once you get down this binary nature, you can reuse compiled entities that way; from a perspective where you build from source, that's a very bad idea. It's why it is hard to package Eclipse for us.

From what I understand of Eclipse, which is confirmed by that link you posted, Eclipse is built with a lot of plugins on a basic core. I see here a good layered approach, and no particular circular dependencies, although I can imagine that Eclipse can be hard to package due to the high amount of plugins

TomWij wrote:
And to bring this thought back to circular dependencies; sometimes a package depends on itself (eg. icedtea), but actually needs another package (eg. icedtea-bin / oracle-jdk-bin / ...) to "bootstrap" it if you don't have this already. A very basic example is that when you install a stage3 you effectively bootstrap GCC, and by doing that you do no longer experience the circular dependency GCC has on itself (assuming you don't use another compiler to build it).

Okay, so that means no circular dependencies, and everybody is happy, right?

TomWij wrote:
Situation 2: You have a package that wants the "threads" USE flag of apache to be set the same as the package itself.

Solution: Enable threads on the package.

And how am I supposed to know what package it is?

TomWij wrote:
It actually describes Gentoo; this is pretty much by design, if you come to Gentoo then you are here with the expectation that you plan to micro manage everything as well as making compatible choices

That would be for me the reason to use Gentoo, provided that:
- the system is solid (like no circular dependencies)
- I have the tools to solve the problems that inevitably come with micro managing, like conflicts. In the ideal situation I have tools that allow me to detect problems, make choices and change the configuration easily, but it would be enough to just be able to spot the problem quickly. A couple of the answers you gave go in that direction
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 5:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The circular dependencies "problem" as you call it is not that easy to "solve" as you might think.

This is just as old as the "chicken-and-egg" dilema. You can compare it with dozens of practical examples:


  • you need petrol, which comes in boats or trucks, but boats and trucks require petrol
  • you need money to eat, but you also need to eat to be able to earn some money
  • you need money to run a business, but you need some business to earn some money
  • you need experience to get a job, but, man, if you don't get a job you'll never have any experience


And you can go on forever... How to "fix" any of these depends on the concrete case. :lol: Most times there's an USE flag that can make your regular kerosene (or whatever) fuelled boat into a rowing one, so you can take your first shipment of fuel into place. After that you can recompile your boat to be as modern as any other boat, because you already have a kerosene supply in order for it to work. It's not that hard to get, really.

And, please, be serious, M$ has nothing to do with, about or against this. This happens in every OS under the sun. In all of them you need a compiler to create object binaries, yet you need object binaries to create a compiler. That's why someone invented bootstraps and cross-compiling.

Old systems are always more complicated to get into shape than 1-week old systems, that's no surprise. You usually update portage the first thing. Then sync (or webrsync) and go from there. Don't expect it to be automatic in such a case, though portage has certainly become a lot more intelligent nowadays than it used to be in the past.

If in problem, just ask for concrete cases. Just venting won't help you. You almost forgot that the big strength of Gentoo is its community, and not some silly "click next" thingie. :)
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:36 am    Post subject: Re: Gentoo is broken Reply with quote

go4linux wrote:
TomWij wrote:
Yes, some software exists that depends on one another; for example, in Eclipse they do not build the software but incrementally rebuild the plugins instead (see http://thume.ca/2013/03/29/contributing-to-eclipse/). Once you get down this binary nature, you can reuse compiled entities that way; from a perspective where you build from source, that's a very bad idea. It's why it is hard to package Eclipse for us.

From what I understand of Eclipse, which is confirmed by that link you posted, Eclipse is built with a lot of plugins on a basic core. I see here a good layered approach, and no particular circular dependencies, although I can imagine that Eclipse can be hard to package due to the high amount of plugins


Well, yeah, I think that despite that they use compiled pieces to work further on they try to avoid circular dependencies in what they do; because the way it work it would be rather easy to build plugin X that uses compiled plugin Y and then adjust plugin Y to use compiled plugin X, and you've just made yourself a circular dependency that way.

go4linux wrote:
TomWij wrote:
And to bring this thought back to circular dependencies; sometimes a package depends on itself (eg. icedtea), but actually needs another package (eg. icedtea-bin / oracle-jdk-bin / ...) to "bootstrap" it if you don't have this already. A very basic example is that when you install a stage3 you effectively bootstrap GCC, and by doing that you do no longer experience the circular dependency GCC has on itself (assuming you don't use another compiler to build it).

Okay, so that means no circular dependencies, and everybody is happy, right?


When you are already bootstrapped, indeed; but if icedtea is the first thing you emerge and you don't already have a JDK present on your system, you get a circular dependency.

go4linux wrote:
TomWij wrote:
Situation 2: You have a package that wants the "threads" USE flag of apache to be set the same as the package itself.

Solution: Enable threads on the package.

And how am I supposed to know what package it is?


Portage tells you which packages need the change in the portion where it suggests you to make an USE flag change. For an example:

Code:
# required by www-client/chromium-28.0.1500.20
# required by www-client/chromium (argument)
media-libs/mesa gles2


go4linux wrote:
TomWij wrote:
It actually describes Gentoo; this is pretty much by design, if you come to Gentoo then you are here with the expectation that you plan to micro manage everything as well as making compatible choices

That would be for me the reason to use Gentoo, provided that:
- the system is solid (like no circular dependencies)
- I have the tools to solve the problems that inevitably come with micro managing, like conflicts. In the ideal situation I have tools that allow me to detect problems, make choices and change the configuration easily, but it would be enough to just be able to spot the problem quickly. A couple of the answers you gave go in that direction


Indeed, we already have quite some tools here and there; but as you go to more specific problems, writing those tools gets a bit more complex and we need better tools then. I guess we'll eventually get there...
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:44 am    Post subject: Re: Gentoo is broken Reply with quote

pfaut wrote:
I let my system go too long without an update. In trying to fix things I screwed it up so bad I had to start over. So although this system has been running gentoo for many years this should be considered a fresh installation.

I've been having nothing but trouble with getting this system setup. Between related packages wanting different USE flag settings an circular dependencies I've probably lost a couple of hours. I won't even mention the udev change that forced me of the first time to use an initramfs.

I used to like gentoo but this stuff is getting to be a bit too much work.

The circular dependencies have me baffled. How can package A depend on package B and package B depend on package A? This sounds like the way Microsoft writes software. There's something seriously wrong here.

Now I've come to a situation where one installed package wants apache to be installed with threads and another wants it installed without. So I decided to back up for a second and see how consistent the current settings are. I try 'emerge -auvDN system' and it tells me I have conflicting packages installed. Somehow both kmod and modutils got installed. How did that happen? I didn't ask for either of them.

I don't remember ever having so much trouble with USE flags and package conflicts but I know it was getting worse when I stopped performing updates. The fact that my system has problems after a fresh install says a lot about the current state of gentoo.

And I haven't even gotten to kde yet.

Excuse me, I just needed to vent.


There's a solution for your problem. Don't use gentoo.

There's ubuntu without USE flags.
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returninguser
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 5:39 pm    Post subject: Re: Gentoo is broken Reply with quote

_______0 wrote:
pfaut wrote:
I let my system go too long without an update. In trying to fix things I screwed it up so bad I had to start over. So although this system has been running gentoo for many years this should be considered a fresh installation.

I've been having nothing but trouble with getting this system setup. Between related packages wanting different USE flag settings an circular dependencies I've probably lost a couple of hours. I won't even mention the udev change that forced me of the first time to use an initramfs.

I used to like gentoo but this stuff is getting to be a bit too much work.

The circular dependencies have me baffled. How can package A depend on package B and package B depend on package A? This sounds like the way Microsoft writes software. There's something seriously wrong here.

Now I've come to a situation where one installed package wants apache to be installed with threads and another wants it installed without. So I decided to back up for a second and see how consistent the current settings are. I try 'emerge -auvDN system' and it tells me I have conflicting packages installed. Somehow both kmod and modutils got installed. How did that happen? I didn't ask for either of them.

I don't remember ever having so much trouble with USE flags and package conflicts but I know it was getting worse when I stopped performing updates. The fact that my system has problems after a fresh install says a lot about the current state of gentoo.

And I haven't even gotten to kde yet.

Excuse me, I just needed to vent.


There's a solution for your problem. Don't use gentoo.

There's ubuntu without USE flags.


You need to have more manners.
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