Fundamental portage questions about SLOTs

fritte · n00b Joined: 18 Aug 2003 Posts: 51

Hello!

I'm fairly new to portage but not to linux/unix in general. I've just read the online Portage manual (http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/portage-manual.xml) and I very much like the SLOT system, where one can have multiple versions of a certain package installed at the same time.

However, I don't get it.

This is the case at hand:

I've got a fresh install of Gentoo here, and now I want to install k3b, the cdr tool. Look:

boltronics · Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2003 10:24 am Post subject:

Good question. I've always taken it for granted that it is doing the right thing and actually installing multiple versions.

But then why does it compare 1.3.1-r3 with 2.1.4? If portage is doing the 'right thing' regarding SLOTs, then it would appear that it's display with the --pretend switch is buggy.

I'm certain it's a bug, but I too would like somebody to confirm.
_________________
"Free" as in "free speech", not as in "free beer".
GPG key ID: 0x78FDC750

TGL

Genone · Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2003 10:30 am Post subject:

Yes, the display for SLOTed packages on emerge -p is confusing. I made a small patch for portage on bug 26139 to make it a bit clearer by using another letter when portage is installing another SLOT.

fritte · n00b Joined: 18 Aug 2003 Posts: 51

I think so too!

If portage (emerge) is about to install another version of a previously installed package, it should say so, it shouldn't say "UPDATE" which is very misleading. Especially when you have 5 years of broken library versions from redhat, mandrake, debian (not so often though) behind you... you tend to get *very* careful. Especially (again!) when there's font things involved. I HATE crappy fonts and ugly desktops!

fritte · n00b Joined: 18 Aug 2003 Posts: 51

So, to solve the problem at hand; how to I make sure that it won't remove freetype 2.1.4 in this particular case?

IWBCMAN · Guru Joined: 25 Jun 2002 Posts: 474

fritte,

Your question has alaready been answered. If portage was going to delete your 2.1.4 version of freetype in the course of installing the 1.3.1 version, portagew would have reported saying :

[ebuild UD]media-libs/freetype-1.3.1-r3 [2.1.4]

But as your posting showed, portage reports:
[ebuild U ] media-libs/freetype-1.3.1-r3 [2.1.4]

Notice the dfifference between the two ? "D" in this case means delete- since "D" did not appear in the display which emerge -pretend k3b generated, you can deduce that the 2.1.4 version is being installed into another SLOT than 1.3.1-r3....if the two versions were to want occupy the same SLOT the already installed package would "B"lock the other package from being installed, in which case you have to unmerge the installed one and risk breaking other mutual dependencies, or portage would remove the previosuly installed package upon installation of the newer(other) package..

furthermore you can simply look at the ebuilds themeselves:
from /usr/portage/media-libs/freetype/freetype-1.3.1-r3.ebuild

fritte · n00b Joined: 18 Aug 2003 Posts: 51

This was very informative! Thank you!

Genone · Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2003 11:08 am Post subject:

fritte · n00b Joined: 18 Aug 2003 Posts: 51

I'm confused again... if beeing in the same slot (I interpret that as having the same SLOT="xxx" in the ebuild file) does not block packages out (they ARE competing for the same "space") then what does?

The difference between "downgrade" and "deleting" is almost academical in this case, it seems. Downgrading implies deleting the old package so.

Genone · Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2003 11:53 am Post subject:

fritte · n00b Joined: 18 Aug 2003 Posts: 51

Your output is better, that patch has my vote. (Btw, is there a voting system like in the mozilla project?)

Genone · Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2003 12:02 pm Post subject:

In theory: yes, as Gentoo uses the same software for bugtracking, but for some reason it is disabled or not working. However, that bug got closed because there are more issues with the SLOT system that are adressed by another bug. Post a comment on the bug if you like it, maybe they'll reconsider.

fritte · n00b Joined: 18 Aug 2003 Posts: 51

Hm... now that I look at the bug (https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26139) I agree with SpanKY, who made the comment that instead of showing "U" or "S", it should show the version corresponding to each SLOT.

In my case, that would be something like:

freetype SLOT 1: 1.3.1r3 [ U ]
freetype SLOT 2: 2.1.4

This is discussed in https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4698 and they seem to be getting somewhere.

neysx · Retired Dev Joined: 27 Jan 2003 Posts: 795

I was about to complain about this discrepancy when I noticed this thread. I'll just add my 0.02
Look at this

TGL · Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2003 4:02 pm Post subject:

neysx · Retired Dev Joined: 27 Jan 2003 Posts: 795

I read the above mentioned bugzilla thread and I like the idea of giving the slot number with the following notation:
emerge db:3 db:4 db:4.1 e.g.

Of course the slot numbers have to be displayed. Read above.

Bonjour chez vous ;-)

TGL · Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2003 10:26 pm Post subject:

I've posted to bugzilla a patch which improves the "emerge -pv" output for slots. It allows what we have discussed above: