Should portage hide build output from the user by default?

[ppurka]

[steveL]

[steveL]

[zmedico]

[ppurka]

[krinn]

What i don't really get is : what's the point of hidding the emerge output per default ? I tried to figure out, but seriously cannot get it

- showing the output show what gentoo is really doing with the package, new users specially might enjoy to see what's going on
- hidding the output doesn't improve speed (or seems it doesn't)
- hidding the output might improve readiness of what was build with success.
- showing the output let you get the error where it happen and no need to check build.log/config.log as portage error report is generally enough to get the picture and correct it
- hidding the output to prevent some debian user joke... Seriously ? Wonder what debian will do if i build an apt-emerge that rebuild all your system with i686 cflags? I don't think debian will give a fuck about that.
- hidding the output just doesn't help to see your emerge is alive, the load average just show your cpu is working, not a proof emerge is doing well, many ebuild using cmake or g++ also put a % of total process done, good to see where your build is at, i just think kde users will just die without it.
- If you default hidding the output, then you MUST default to enable elog message logging. Don't teach users to stop taking care about portage output per default else they won't take care of anything that is not log.

Users of gentoo might just use the option to disable or enable it, that's not the point, what should be the point is that this now default behavior will hide the output to new gentoo user. And i'm not sure hidding compile output will not disturb them more because they won't know what's going on, and might even think they are cheated about the "source" distro they install.

So instead of cons/pro as we have a flag to enable/disable it, look for cons/pro for new user that will not handle all portage flags like us. And for me, it's a bad thing to hide how portage is working per default for a new gentoo user.
I vote "show output per default" and i think it's the best choice for a new gentoo user as experience user don't care as devs have provide a flag to enable/disable it.

[aditsu]

steveL, I didn't mean to offend you, I was just commenting that it doesn't seem to meet my requirements/expectations.

[zmedico]

[th9]

[krinn]

I don't know what upset you that much about that joke seriously ? I find it fun, it's a useless tools for fun that tackle source distro.

In fact you think the "ridiculous output" is the real joke? Well i think the real target is here :

[zmedico]

[BitJam]

IMO, the output of emerge would be MUCH more useful if it was briefer. I emerge world every week or two and the output of emerge is so long I have a hard time scrolling through it looking for things (such as which packages failed to emerge).

Since the default value mostly affects how new users experience Gentoo, I think the briefer output should be the default. ISTM the current default is --super-ultra-extra-verbose which is ridiculous. Printing out voluminous information when 99.99% of it is utterly useless is not a good idea.

[zmedico]

[dalek]

[zmedico]

[dalek]

[michelle778]

I don't care much - I voted hide by default since I guess most people don't watch "mergeTV" anyway (I usually go to sleep or do something else). Anyway, as long as the error mesages are still displayed everything would be fine with me.
_________________
Nothing is easier than being busy - and nothing more difficult than being effective.

[zmedico]

[krinn]

[zmedico]

[Etal]

I don't have much of an opinion either way on this issue (this, to me, seems to be an epitome of bikeshedding), but I want to thank Zac for all the great work he has been doing on Portage recently. In the past year, Portage has come a really long way. Thank you, Zac!
_________________
“And even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable.”– Hillary Clinton, Jan. 21, 2010

[stalker]

[stalker]

OK, so it spits out the Build log at the end. That negates a reason for not changing it, not making one for changing it.
_________________
Look behind you...

Think outside the box, give the cat a chance.

[Malaki]

I voted for for the output to be shown as default. I think it is a somewhat a part of Gentoo to actually see all process, advanced users can use otherwise, while new comers, at my opinion, should see the checking, sources preparations and actual compiling process. I'm compiling from sources for years, not just on Gentoo but also with Red Hat(and successors) SRPMs. Even for advanced users, like myself, i really enjoy seeing what is the language used and what's happening. Sure it is not readable sometimes when you have Phenom X4 proc and use MAKEOPTS="-j5", it's making me smile when i see my system compiled as fast as a machine gun. I'm used to watch compilation process taking forever, trying to see lines is somewhat a joy.

Though, i would recommend making a better pre-compilation check system, that would put already checked stuff into an easy to access database, but not make those disappear neither, sometimes when i go from a machine to another, i like to see what's there and what's not, as for some machines i use all possible languages, so if i see GNU compiler tell me, for example, there's no fortran support or other stuff, it remind me maybe i forgot to put it in the USE flags. That said, recompiling an entire system of about 1200 packages and seeing redundant checks taking 30% of the emerge time, it bothers me a LOT. I would be for a unified check for those to save time.


Simon-Pierre Dubé.
Engineer in Chief at MalakiLab.

[kernelOfTruth]