| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
NeddySeagoon
Administrator
Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Posts: 54236
Location: 56N 3W
|
 Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2017 2:04 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
L. Vmbrius,
You can create a Pull Request on github.
If you are not careful, you will be a proxy-maintainer.
That means you get the credit while the dev who commits you work gets the blame :)
Its the first step to becoming a Gentoo developer yourself.
_________________
Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
asturm
Developer
Joined: 05 Apr 2007
Posts: 8936
|
| Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2017 4:16 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| L. Vmbrius wrote: | | I simply renamed 1.5.0 ebuild to 2.0.0, digest, emerge - and it works. |
'Just works' - that's not enough for packaging. You actually need to read through changelog, detect build system changes, new or dropped dependencies, check if use flag combinations still work. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
duby2291
Guru
Joined: 17 Oct 2004
Posts: 583
|
| Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2017 6:03 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| khayyam wrote: | | rich0 wrote: | | Gentoo could add 5000 more developers next week, and none of them could decide that they're interested in maintaining the particular package YOU are most interested in. People will tend to scratch their own itches. If there is a package that you in particular want better supported, then you might need to be the one to maintain it. |
rich0 ... in the most general sense of 'support', I agree. However, I would consider such things as @system, tools used to maintain gentoo (PM, gentoolkit, etc) should be not considered as dependent on someone "scratching an itch", or not. So, should someone change how x,y,z functions (ie, the use of 'sync-type = git', changelogs, etc) then everything expecting that function to work in a certain way needs to be updated to reflect these changes (or that change is effectively breaking the user experience) ... and, no, "keeping the majority happy" is not a valid argument ITR.
| rich0 wrote: | | Sure, Gentoo can use more developers, but simply adding developers isn't going to cause any particular package to be maintained the way you want it maintained. (Seems like many are complaining about openrc lately, and that is a case of a package which IS maintained, but some people just don't like how. There is nothing wrong with that, but the solution in that case is usually to fork it. You can't compel somebody to maintain a package the way you want it to be maintained.) |
It is a reasonable expectation that a critical component of the system is well maintained, and that this maintenance does not include breaking working setups because one particular developer thinks that this is what development amounts to. If the criteria of maintenance is defined by the developer then we too can be similarly single minded and expect they do the work we do to support it in gentoo fora. That isn't the case because we have an implicit agreement (explicit if one considers gentoo's charter) that work done is "for the community, by the community" and that we work together for common mutual benefit. Saying, "if you don't like it, you can fork" is all well and good, but it is the threat of such division that is supposed to act as a check on one or other of us doing as we please. It is this sort of 'solution', or way of framing the problem, that effectively makes it seem as though we are being provided something without ever having to do anything in return, that is incorrect, users share a similar burden in terms of making gentoo function, we provide Q&A in the form of bug reports, etc, support each other with skill sharing, problem solving, etc, etc (ad infinatum). Developers do not have an out in saying that they have some right to do as they please, the reverse is true, they are agents of the community and the community has every right to expect they do the right thing for the community, not whatever they please. This is a common refrain in developer circles, and seems to be something inculcated as one is brought into the fold, however, it is entirely contrary (and therefore unsupportable) in terms of the charter's "four pillars".
best ... khay |
I truly wish there was a "like" button I could select. Because I agree with this post sooooo much. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Fitzcarraldo
Advocate
Joined: 30 Aug 2008
Posts: 2034
Location: United Kingdom
|
| Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2017 7:42 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Is it just my impression, or has there really been an upsurge in new Gentoo users recently (there seem to be a lot of new users posting in these forums in the last few months)?
_________________
Clevo W230SS: amd64, VIDEO_CARDS="intel modesetting nvidia".
Compal NBLB2: ~amd64, xf86-video-ati. Dual boot Win 7 Pro 64-bit.
OpenRC udev elogind & KDE on both.
Fitzcarraldo's blog |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
miket
Guru
Joined: 28 Apr 2007
Posts: 488
Location: Gainesville, FL, USA
|
| Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2017 7:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| duby2291 wrote: | | I truly wish there was a "like" button I could select. Because I agree with this post sooooo much. |
Well, funny, this is just in line with the Gentoo experience. We don't rely on simple playthings like GUI configuration tools to do our work--we edit configuration files and run commands. You've found the Gentoo equivalent of the "like" button. 
More than that, because of this nifty flexibility we also can manage things like "don't like" or "like mostly but disagree with X and Y". |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rich0
Developer
Joined: 15 Sep 2002
Posts: 161
|
| Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2017 9:07 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Fitzcarraldo wrote: | | Is it just my impression, or has there really been an upsurge in new Gentoo users recently (there seem to be a lot of new users posting in these forums in the last few months)? |
That's crazy talk! Haven't you heard? Gentoo is dying... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ct85711
Veteran
Joined: 27 Sep 2005
Posts: 1791
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 1:58 am Post subject: |
|
|
| rich0 wrote: | | That's crazy talk! Haven't you heard? Gentoo is dying... |
Well, I must be deaf, as I haven't heard the fat lady sing yet! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
pandaxiongmao
Guru
Joined: 29 Sep 2003
Posts: 478
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 6:08 am Post subject: |
|
|
Perhaps shifting more software from main repo to overlays would relieve some of the burdens, so devs could then focus on the essentials; I'm aware that the definition of essential is ambiguous or open to various different interpretation.
_________________
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo
GPU: nVidia GeForce 9800 GT
MB: Asus P5N-E SLI |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mv
Watchman
Joined: 20 Apr 2005
Posts: 6747
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 6:33 am Post subject: |
|
|
| pandaxiongmao wrote: | | Perhaps shifting more software from main repo to overlays would relieve some of the burdens |
This means to admit that gentoo is already below the critical mass to keep the distribution alive. Cf. exherbo and funtoo. In theory, you can use overlays; in practice, it isn't a distribution anymore and users are on their own for most things a distribution should cover. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rich0
Developer
Joined: 15 Sep 2002
Posts: 161
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 11:54 am Post subject: |
|
|
| pandaxiongmao wrote: | | Perhaps shifting more software from main repo to overlays would relieve some of the burdens, so devs could then focus on the essentials; I'm aware that the definition of essential is ambiguous or open to various different interpretation. |
The problem is that this is unlikely to happen. The devs will just keep maintaining the packages they already maintain in the overlays, and continue to ignore the packages they're already ignoring in the main repo.
The issue isn't that we have too many packages in the main repo. The problem is that we have a lot of core packages that there aren't many people interested in maintaining.
If somebody wants to see a package maintained, they need to step up to maintain it, or do something that causes somebody else to step up and maintain it. Taking other things away is unlikely to have that effect, because devs don't just balance themselves across the packages in the repo. This is why there are "less essential" packages that are very well maintained and "more essential" ones which aren't. I use quotes because this is a subjective call and what one person considers less essential is apparently important enough to somebody else that they've stepped up and done the work. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
zlg
Retired Dev
Joined: 11 Sep 2012
Posts: 49
Location: Earth
|
| Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 5:40 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Hu wrote: | | Recall that not all Gentoo developers are advanced programmers. Some of them write shell/Python well enough to do what they need, but would be lost if you tried to get them to debug complicated C++, Ruby, etc. Such developers are perfectly suitable for making a well-written upstream project integrate nicely with Gentoo, but cannot help you if the problem is a bug in the upstream code. Even for those developers who have the technical background that they could take over programming from upstream, they may not know the upstream code well enough to solve the issue quickly. They could spend hours or days chasing the problem, versus asking the upstream developer to investigate and that programmer having a fix in very short order because he/she knows the code in detail. Yes, it is frustrating to write up a bug report only to be told that you are in the wrong place, but sometimes, solving it in the right place is the only viable option. |
I'd like to second that, entirely.
As mostly a maintainer, sometimes I get bugs that I sometimes have to dive into the code, research upstream's issue tracker, if any, and decide on what the best solution is. A good maintainer doesn't push just anything; you want to find a fix that consistently provides the solution in a way that isn't messy or confusing to read. That said, mistakes happen. Anyone who used apulse in mid-2015 got hit by my crappy attempt at a cross-lib wrapper script. mgorny delivered fine, if blunt critique, and I was able to fix the issue by learning from other developers. Since then, I've found that routine sanity checking with other devs goes a long way to avoiding the stupid mistakes. But that still requires people to be available and paying attention. Naturally, most of us have to put our offline lives first. That translates to a generally low availability in terms of time. Some of us don't interact much socially, either, preferring to work mostly with code. A difference in personality like that can cause friction.
It's no surprise we have these issues, but we're active when we can be. Gentoo really isn't mainstream these days, and people are perceiving less value in customizable desktop computers, preferring tablets, phones, or hybrid laptops and generally locked down systems. Only the curious and the particular will find us. There's nothing wrong with that, but it comes with its own set of challenges. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
steveL
Watchman
Joined: 13 Sep 2006
Posts: 5153
Location: The Peanut Gallery
|
| Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 6:24 am Post subject: |
|
|
| rich0 wrote: | | Well, I think this discussion makes it fairly obvious what you can expect... :) |
| khayyam wrote: | | rich0 ... yes, avoidance. |
LOL.
Missed that first time round, but in context it's clear that avoidance is what was on offer.
Just thought it unfair, to ignore points 1 & 3 (which could so easily have been given a "fair enough") along with the descriptions of a "dose of khayyam", who has articulated thoughts other users clearly agree with.
No biggy (it's not a source of angst or vitriol.)
Anyhow, moving on.. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
steveL
Watchman
Joined: 13 Sep 2006
Posts: 5153
Location: The Peanut Gallery
|
| Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 6:28 am Post subject: |
|
|
| zlg wrote: | | Gentoo really isn't mainstream these days, and people are perceiving less value in customizable desktop computers, preferring tablets, phones, or hybrid laptops and generally locked down systems. Only the curious and the particular will find us. There's nothing wrong with that, but it comes with its own set of challenges. |
Well, it's always been like that; Gentoo has never been mainstream (niche of a niche), and it's only ever really been for the "curious and particular" as you put it.
It does make a very nice basis from which to deliver more "locked-down", or "fixed-base", systems, however; just that the first-line Gentoo user is typically an admin, not an end-user. (in that context.) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
shevy
n00b
Joined: 28 Aug 2017
Posts: 16
|
| Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2017 12:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I do not think that this is necessarily limited to Gentoo alone. If you look about, you see a
general downwards trends for many hobbyist-projects.
Many reasons were already mentioned - family, work, kids and so forth.
Change in interest of technology is also a reason.
Also users getting annoyed - look at KDE. Last KDE that was great was KDE 3 - since
then it went downhill. Look at the systemd assimilation into Linux - I have been using
systemd-free distributions (actually slackware, sorry gentoo, largely because I only
use slackware as base for LFS/BLFS). Then the rise of smartphones. Game projects
also suffer from this - there are so many games that were big but slowly die - wesnoth,
and several others such as boswars, wormpedia (wormux), and an UFO AI clone
that was in 3D and also is dying...
I think that in many ways, the old hacker-breed is dying out or changing culturally.
Lots of more people going into web-related stuff. These people VERY OFTEN have
zero C knowledge. C has also been somewhat on the decline - it's still hugely important
but how many have enough time AND knowledge to fix up C-related problems? I've
went into the "scripting" programming languages family (ruby) and I honestly would not
know why I would invest my time with C or any variant. Sure, speed is an advantage
but my time is too precious to have to micro-manage memory when the computer could
do so for me.
These are of course not reasons that are necessarily directly related to gentoo as such,
mind you, but I have noticed a downwards trend on distrowatch for gentoo. Which isn't
hugely important ... but more of an indication.
steveL wrote:
> Well, it's always been like that; Gentoo has never been mainstream (niche of a niche
Agreed.
I think gentoo always aimed for the techies and gurus, which was another reason why
I shied away from it. I love simplicity. I don't want to have to learn the insides and outs
of any specific distribution per se (I am using LFS/BLFS or at the least making use
of that information but I compile everything from source using ruby; which has been
another reason for me to not use gentoo since it uses python, sorry - I am too happy
with ruby to switch after 15 years:D )
steveL wrote:
> and it's only ever really been for the "curious and particular" as you put it.
Well, you have more competition though. Not just linux from scratch but also distributions
such as voidlinux, which is going to replace archlinux eventually - and let's remember,
when jud was in charge of archlinux, archlinux was THE alternative to gentoo. I remember
this during old IRC discussions and OOC talk in classical text-MUD games (damn now
I feel old... )
steveL:
> It does make a very nice basis from which to deliver more "locked-down", or "fixed-base",
> systems, however; just that the first-line Gentoo user is typically an admin, not an end-user. (in that context.)
But so do various other projects too. And I am not sure if the typical user of today wants to
have to know that much.
If I were on gentoo then I would keep the focus on tech and knowledge but I would also aim
at more casual users and SIMPLIFY gentoo. This runs of course counter to what you may
say aka "bla bla bla gentoo is super-simpler already bla bla you don't have to customize
bla bla" - but that is an inside-the-bubble look.
Simplify gentoo and streamline it.
PS: I also think that this massive fragmentation in linux is not good in general. In particular
because corporate hackers became so much more dominant in the last 10 years, they
also whacked out many hobbyist hackers who just can't keep up with the competition
here. This is largely what happened with the influence of Red Hat; see the systemd assimilation
of debian all of a sudden. Gnome and KDE are mostly corporate software only, which is
unfortunate since they started in a completely different manner. Which brings me back to
the point above... I think the hobbyist programmers are a dying breed.
Gone are the days of "just a hobby, won't be big and professional". |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
shevy
n00b
Joined: 28 Aug 2017
Posts: 16
|
| Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2017 12:50 pm Post subject: |
|
|
> It's no surprise we have these issues, but we're active when we can be. Gentoo really isn't mainstream these days, and people are
> perceiving less value in customizable desktop computers, preferring tablets, phones, or hybrid laptops and generally locked down
> systems. Only the curious and the particular will find us. There's nothing wrong with that, but it comes with its own set of challenges.
There are also people who like to tinker but not want to be locked into any particular mindset when doing so. This is why LFS/BLFS
is another huge competition here for Gentoo.
You can say that you have a lot of customizability in Gentoo - this may be, but how well does it translate into general knowledge? And
how much of this is specific to any particular program such as a package manager? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ant P.
Watchman
Joined: 18 Apr 2009
Posts: 6920
|
| Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2017 4:49 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| shevy wrote: | I am using LFS/BLFS or at the least making use
of that information but I compile everything from source using ruby; which has been
another reason for me to not use gentoo since it uses python, sorry - I am too happy
with ruby to switch after 15 years:D |
I've been using and contributing to Gentoo for 11 years and have never needed to write a line of Python. You base your pride on an ignorance that isn't even rooted in reality. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Yamakuzure
Advocate
Joined: 21 Jun 2006
Posts: 2284
Location: Adendorf, Germany
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 8:34 am Post subject: |
|
|
LFS is not a real alternative to a rolling upgrade meta-distribution like Gentoo.
What do you do in LFS if you want to update several packages? Well, most people install their system from scratch then, at least eventually, because LFS is not about tracking package content.
I am using LFS to set up build chroots, so I can simulate SLES and RHEL systems to build some software for. They won't need updates.
...but for an every-day development machine? Sorry, but Gentoo is far superior to LFS and DiYL.
...and who cares which language portage is written in?
I do not think that there is so much change as feared. Actually the base is the same, with natural fluctuations. But thanks to mainstream linux distributions, a lot of mainstream users simply switched to linux. They are an addition, not a replacement.
_________________
Important German:- "Aha" - German reaction to pretend that you are really interested while giving no f*ck.
- "Tja" - German reaction to the apocalypse, nuclear war, an alien invasion or no bread in the house.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Goverp
Advocate
Joined: 07 Mar 2007
Posts: 2006
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2017 10:29 am Post subject: |
|
|
My measure of Gentoo bloodflow is the size of "View posts from last 24 hours" on forums.gentoo.org. In the summer, that fits on one page; the rest of the time it's just over 1. I deduce gentooers go to the beach, and live in the northern hemisphere.
It's back over 1 page now.
_________________
Greybeard |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
steveL
Watchman
Joined: 13 Sep 2006
Posts: 5153
Location: The Peanut Gallery
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2017 10:48 am Post subject: |
|
|
| shevy wrote: | | I think that in many ways, the old hacker-breed is dying out or changing culturally. |
Sure, the older generation has died out, as it always will, and not many of the newer generation see any value in the old-school, as they always will.
The latter tendency is getting much worse, as the internet is used as an echo chamber of cargo-cult thinking, which makes you much more vulnerable to socio-political pressure (and geeks are already crap at those issues, in general.) This is deliberate (part of the "corporate takeover".) | shevy wrote: | I think gentoo always aimed for the techies and gurus, which was another reason why
I shied away from it. I love simplicity. I don't want to have to learn the insides and outs
of any specific distribution per se (I am using LFS/BLFS or at the least making use
of that information but I compile everything from source using ruby; which has been
another reason for me to not use gentoo since it uses python, sorry - I am too happy
with ruby to switch after 15 years:D ) |
LOL. You "love simplicity" but prefer to maintain a custom ruby LFS rather than just use Gentoo.
I don't care what you use, I just find that self-contradictory and masochistic.
| shevy wrote: | | Well, you have more competition though. |
That really doesn't matter to most Gentoo users, ime, and certainly not to me.
Sure, there's an element of "I'm happy with Gentoo, so why should I care?", but mostly it's because such notions of "competition" are a waste of time.
Again, part of the hype, not the tech; and the hype is designed to stop you thinking.
The effect is to close down collaboration between peer projects, while allowing corporates to coopt our work (and take the money, allowing them to coopt more..)
| steveL wrote: | | It does make a very nice basis from which to deliver more "locked-down", or "fixed-base", systems, however; just that the first-line Gentoo user is typically an admin, not an end-user. (in that context.) |
| shevy wrote: | But so do various other projects too. And I am not sure if the typical user of today wants to
have to know that much. |
So what? I never mentioned other projects, because we're not doing some overall comparison of every project out there; sure other UNIX platforms and distros can be used to deliver whatever. Gentoo clearly can be used in such a manner, or Google would not be able to deliver chromium notebooks.
My point was more about Gentoo first-line users, who are always admins of their machine if nothing else; and definitely admins when it comes to delivery of a locked-down platform.
In that context, it seems self-evident that end-users don't want, or cannot be required, "to know that much"; that's a given. But they're not Gentoo users: they're users of the locked-down platform delivered to them by admins who are Gentoo users, using it to build their own distro, as we all do in effect, and as Google does with chromium OS.
| shevy wrote: | If I were on gentoo then I would keep the focus on tech and knowledge but I would also aim
at more casual users and SIMPLIFY gentoo. |
You do not know what you are talking about, imo.
Gentoo is not aimed at casual users, and if you try to dumb it down for them, you simply end up with users who have NFC about how to administer their machine, who then get angry with us, and spread vitriol about a Gentoo they never even knew across the internet.
Here's an idea for you: simplify BLFS and streamline it so it can be maintained by a more casual user. When you have a repo that allows someone to install and maintain it SIMPLY, then we can talk some more.
I think your time would be better spent actually learning to use Gentoo (by installing on real h/w.)
Clearly you've been put off before, but you now have all that experience of building your own packages using ruby scripts and LFS recipes. It should make much more sense, and feel like much less work, in usage.
FWIW I agree with you about corporate takeover, but not that fragmentation in linux is a bad thing, nor that hobbyist programmers are a dying breed.
"Fragmentation" is fine: it indicates a diverse ecosystem, and that is much better in the long-run than a monoculture (which never lasts.)
There may be less hobbyist programmers as a percentage of the crap "developers" that are out there; but there's many more in absolute terms than there were in the 1970s, and it is much much easier to get started (there are no issues in acquiring a decent toolchain, as there were back then.)
So I think some kids are always going to get into coding for the love of it, at an early age, and there'll be more of them over time; however they'll have as much influence as plumbers currently do -- which won't matter to the ones doing it for the craft.
All we can do is point the new-school kids at IRC: chat.freenode.net and tell them to start learning for real (start with #bash ##workingset and ##c) rather than from the cargo-cult echo-chamber of anti-social media. Noting that this means they will need to buy some books. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
1clue
Advocate
Joined: 05 Feb 2006
Posts: 2569
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2017 1:56 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Wait.
I seem to remember sometime shortly after I joined the forum 11 years ago it was dying back then too.
So is Gentoo STILL dying or was it dying before, then got better, and now it's dying again?
This is so confusing, because Gentoo today seems a lot better than it did when I started. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
NeddySeagoon
Administrator
Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Posts: 54236
Location: 56N 3W
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2017 1:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
1clue,
Some readers equate change with dying. Gentoo has been changing since I started using it in mid 2002.
Its still changing.
As long as this thread is alive, so is Gentoo :)
_________________
Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Dr.Willy
Guru
Joined: 15 Jul 2007
Posts: 547
Location: NRW, Germany
|
| Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2017 4:42 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Well, Gentoo IS dying.
But technically so is our solar system, so … |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Hu
Moderator
Joined: 06 Mar 2007
Posts: 21631
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2017 2:04 am Post subject: |
|
|
| It was dying, but this thread has motivated it to go for a walk. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
HungGarTiger
Apprentice
Joined: 04 Feb 2014
Posts: 180
Location: /nz/auckland
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2017 3:03 am Post subject: |
|
|
This thread just motivates me to get involved but I don't know how/have the required level of programming ability  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
desultory
Bodhisattva
Joined: 04 Nov 2005
Posts: 9410
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2017 3:56 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Required by whom for what? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
Gentoo Chat
