circular dependencies

[honeymak]

if there will be an option for automated USE flag check recursively......that will be good stuff
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hackers - make sth real
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[InfoManiac]

Removing the "doc" keyword completely solved the problem for me.

It did not matter what I tried to emerge *everything* failed, I kept getting circular dependency errors on everything.

Mind you this in one a completely clean system, this problem started happening right after this point (because of the "doc" keyword):
Rebooting The System.

I have noticed the dependency system NEEDS to be re-vamped! I always have to chase down the error and emerge other things then come back around to doing an emerge system / world.

It needs to check the things that need to be installed first (being the dependency), so that the things you are installing get what is needed to be installed first then the requested item (which you are trying to install) gets installed after.

It needs to be recursive and needs to install sub-dependencies first, and work backwards first, so that when it comes to installing the requested item, all will be in place.

I know this sounds easier than it probably is and probably a ton or work, but portage needs a checking system and possibly a couple of back items to verify all is well and in place, etc. as I believe this will solve the problem long term and will reduce the headache on the developers.

P.S. I tried Debian, Fedora for a while and I just can't do it! I am absolutely sucked into Gentoo! It is FAR more superior! Once you go Gentoo you never go back!
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GIT-RRRR-DOOOONE!

[manos]

Circular dependencies trying to build a new gentoo system.
Timestamp of tree: Tue, 06 Mar 2007 23:00:09 +0000
First appear of the problem when I tried to merge kde-meta.
I merged the latest sys-apps/portage-2.1.2-r9 (masked ~x86)
DirectFB depended on libsdl and the opposite. (Because of the sdl and directfb flags)
I removed directfb from my USE flags but I think emerging libsdl without using the directfb flag will work just fine..
Is this considered to be a bug?

[InfoManiac]

Yeah.....it is a bug, but it is not any particular keyword it seems because reading through this entire thread I have noticed different keywords have been needed to be removed in order to solve the problem for the others.

I have DirectFB and libsdl flags enabled and emerge works until I add "doc" back, so let's not call it a bug for any of these keywords because I could've disable they keywords you did but I would still get this problem until I removed "doc"

If a bug is to be filed, best to file it against portage and include the link to this topic so the developer(s) can determine what's going on, since that would probably yield the best results.
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GIT-RRRR-DOOOONE!

[manos]

You are right.
Reading this thread at the beginning I have removed "doc" flag.
If I try to emerge with the "doc" flag I still get a circular dependencies error.

[Genone]

[honeymak]

my approach was to do stuff manually
i think it's hard to have an automated solution to circular dependency problem

when i need pkg A, AND i have enabled some certain USE flags which requires pkg B been installed first, while pkg B needs some headers from pkg A for some certain USE flags which requires pkg A been installed first.

then i just disable ALL USE flags for pkg A, test each USE flags for pkg A as long as pkg B is not required, so that i can have a successful build for pkg A
then i just disable ALL USE flags for pkg B, test each USE flags for pkg B as long as pkg A is not required, so that i can have a successful build for pkg B
then rebuild both pkg A AND B

this could be quite a long process though
but this solves
u will see this when u have ldap and samba
_________________
hackers - make sth real
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[InfoManiac]

@Genone:
This is a problem with portage. It needs to be fixed, unless just referring people to other threads is common place with Gentoo now, rather than the problem being solved. I am an end user of this distribution, it needs to work correctly, else what's the point? I mean take Windows, if they just referred people to a forum thread instead of fixing problems that are detrimental to the OS working (in this case Portage, not the OS, isn't functioning correctly) I doubt they would've gotten where they are. They would be laughed right off the page.

I do not need to bother myself with having to perform tricks to get portage to work. That is a bug, not a "feature" If it's broke the developers need to fix it (one would think).

Definition of a bug that I go by. This is a bug

@honeymak:
Yeah, that's ridiculous. Let's face it, portage has a legitimate bug, it isn't working as intended.....unless being broken is the intention here.

Real simple, it's broke (Portage), I am supposed to use a keyword of my choice so I can get that added into whatever supports it. That's not happening, I am getting errors. Something needs fixing.

=====

Unless what I am saying is just crazy talk, and these are truly features and I should want to pull hat tricks outta my arse in order to use Portage.

Sorry, but Portage is supposedly maintained by developers, not the end-user. We just use it, developers are supposed to make it work. For me to point this out and be told I should want to fix something I didn't break, enjoy it and get satisfaction in the fact that it will not be fixed is totally useless. It doesn't fix what's broke.

I am being told to enjoy the experience basically uh...no....howz about we fix that little problem. I see one in this topic is a developer, I tell ya what, the time being spent here telling me <x>,<y>, and <z> the problem could've been solved already in a quarter of the time it took to talk it all out.
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GIT-RRRR-DOOOONE!

[Sminkie]

I have had the same problem. I wanted to do an emerge on mozilla-firefox, but had circular dependencies..

There was one package (DirectFB) that depended on libsdl.
Libsdl on the other hand depended on DirectFB...

Took me a while to find out, but finally i ran an 'emerge --nodeps DirectFB'
That worked for me...

Now I am runnig an 'emerge mozilla-firefox'...
No problem anymore, hope this can be a help to others!
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D.Smink

- -

Linux, Just Change .... Fuck MS!

[KShots]

[aka_iG]

Can you imagine the hassle that is installing a new Gentoo box?

For now, and to avoid not compiling anything at all without fixing dependencies (which I really don't know how yet), I've downgraded portage to version 2.1.1-r2 .
At least for now I can compile <i>automatically</i> big part of system. Until portage is updated. I've tried to mask it but it's required the new version 2.1.2.2 for some dependency

Bottom line... this doesn't look good and I don't see a reasonable solution popping up very soon

Cheers,
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Ivo Belchior Gonçalves

"Most days I wake up thinking I'm the luckiest bastard alive."

[KShots]

I do know how much of a hassle that is with a new gentoo box. I went through it myself.

Once I understood the problem, I just resolved that I would likely have to build most portions of my system multiple times. My first step was to re-build the whole system with all USE flags stripped out (USE="-*" emerge --emptytree system), which gave me a very stripped down system. I then proceeded to emerge everything I wanted, also with all USE flags stripped out, then got lucky because the things I wanted, once installed, resolved the circular dependencies for the whole system, allowing me to rebuild it and the world with the USE flags I wanted. The whole process took several hours.

EDIT: I should also caveat that I don't exactly recommend this approach for anyone. I used it because I thought I could get a usable system before the bug was fixed (and I was right), but things could easily have gone horribly wrong, wasting a lot of my time in the process.
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Life without passion is death in disguise

[sheepdog]

Unable to resolve circular dependencies in spite of removing all the use flags from the blocking packages:

[UncleOwen]

[djinnZ]

[zmedico]

[InfoManiac]

Currently I had been trying "emerge -uDN" on either world or system and that's where the problem is consistent for me.

If I just use emerge with no options and world /system after it then it will emerge the packages.

So this would tell us that it has something to do with using the deep argument (and for my system) when "doc" support is being requested, emerging a new clean system.

Not sure if that helps in the process of solving this but if we can narrow this down, the problem can be solved with greater certainty.
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GIT-RRRR-DOOOONE!

[zmedico]

[InfoManiac]

Before I had written a reply, I had just emerged without using Deep argument, so I won't have any problems since the system will be completely emerged and after which I no longer experience any problems with using "doc" keyword or using deep argument passed to Portage, so I do regret that I had not posted that here before that, but I got sick of dealing with it and since not passing deep allows a successfully merge, I figured eff-it

This is odd because if I have a system that is clean, and the first time an emerge to world or system is performed with the deep argument passed to it, troubles start.

If I have anymore problems I will post what I can here, sorry that I hadn't.
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GIT-RRRR-DOOOONE!

[djinnZ]

[zmedico]

[InfoManiac]

I suppose what might also be a good sub-topic is to add to the documentation describing the keywords and give examples of what gets installed by things like "doc" and who will actually get any use out of it like "non-developers will have no use for this" give it a description like the Debian team does and make it 100% clear what each keyword is intended for which audience, who should use it, things like that.

I say this because I will be 100% honest with you. I don't really know what this keyword installs, and if I am really getting use of it at all.

I figured "..well 'doc' that's good, I do want documentation in case I need reference or help,etc."

This would take down two problems at once. First being actual clarity of USE keywords (with the type of details mentioned above) and if it were a keyword only devs need, then they'd be able to fix it and since they would be the only ones using it it wouldn't bother a non-dev. And they'd be able to work on dev-only flags more efficiently.

It's obvious that "doc" is one example of this happening, but I think it will cut down on keywords most of use and don't really need, want, etc.
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GIT-RRRR-DOOOONE!

[zmedico]

[InfoManiac]

Well, yeah, I know that -- but _what_ type of documentation is being installed?

You're already telling me something I already know, and is readily available from just about anywhere on the gentoo.org or gentoo-wiki site, but that doesn't help, I do not know *what* is being installed.

These keywords need clarity, these things need more specifics. A simple brief description for these things just aren't going to cut it.

Wouldn't you like to be able to have a reference that is better that what is currently available, where you could read it and know 100% that you do / do not need that keyword, I mean _know_ if you need it.

That's the problem, we need to _know_ this stuff, it should say who the keywords are usefull for dev, non-dev as well as what it installs and a couple of examples of what is being installed, so you could get some examples what what it installs and say "oh...ok, I certainly don't need that"

I submitted a proposal for this.
Keywords Proposal: Need netter clarity

I can't see why anyone wouldn't want this, and be able to better understand these things. Because as it stands now only the developers (for the most part) are really going to know what these keywords do.

I should no have to become one or gain the skills of a developer to understand them either (as I do not plan to become a developer).
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GIT-RRRR-DOOOONE!

[Genone]