Portage, what are you thinking?

[NiBe]

I ran the command "emerge -pvuD world", more out of curiosity of what could be upgraded than out of need. I noticed a few things that made me raise an eyebrow.

First of all, portage wants to intall GCC 3.4.3, which is fine by me, but it isn't marked as an upgrade as I thought it should be, but as a new package. What will happen to the version of GCC (3.3.4) that's installed now? I'm not really fond of the idea of two GCC-versions installed.

Second, portage wants to intall six (6) new versions of automake for me.

[ebuild UD] sys-devel/automake-1.5 [1.8.5-r1] (-uclibc) 514 kB
[ebuild NS ] sys-devel/automake-1.8.5-r2 (-uclibc) 647 kB
[ebuild NS ] sys-devel/automake-1.6.3 (-uclibc) 465 kB
[ebuild NS ] sys-devel/automake-1.7.9 (-uclibc) 564 kB
[ebuild NS ] sys-devel/automake-1.4_p6 (-uclibc) 366 kB
[ebuild N ] sys-devel/automake-wrapper-1 0 kB
[ebuild NS ] sys-devel/automake-1.9.3 (-uclibc) 720 kB

One is an upgrade, which is fine of course, but the rest? Why is this? one version has served me well so far.

Same thing goes for autoconf, which wants to upgrade 2.59-r5 to 2.59-r6. More than upgrading, it wants to install 2.13 on my system as well. Why?

Further, portage thinks installing spamassassin would be a great idea, which has a lot of perl library dependancies as well. I'm not running a mailserver on my workstation so this is all stupid. Why would spamassassin be installed?

Finally, portage wants to install sysvinit, which is currently not installed at all if I'm to believe portage. What would cause this to be required?

USE="sse msn icq dvd cdr ftp imap ssl mmx opengl alsa gnome gtk2 -gpm -qt -kde -arts -xmms -sdl"

[adaptr]

I ran the command "emerge -pvuD world", more out of curiosity of what could be upgraded than out of need. I noticed a few things that made me raise an eyebrow.

Eyebrows raised, aargh.

First of all, portage wants to intall GCC 3.4.3, which is fine by me, but it isn't marked as an upgrade as I thought it should be, but as a new package. What will happen to the version of GCC (3.3.4) that's installed now? I'm not really fond of the idea of two GCC-versions installed.

It isn't.
The S next to the N means it will be installed in a new SLOT, since gcc 3.4 is in another version slot than gcc 3.3.
Nothing will happen to the old one, as you can always decide for yourself which one is actually used by the system.
The command to look for is gcc-config.

And why wouldn't you have two versions installed side-by-side ?
This isn't Windows, where that would be patently impossible.
It may even be required if you need to run 2 applications that need different versions to function - many system libraries are used in a variety of versions alongside one another.
Check your /usr directory - chances are you have both python 2.1 and python 2.3 installed.
This is quite normal.

Second, portage wants to intall six (6) new versions of automake for me.

Code: Select all

[ebuild     UD] sys-devel/automake-1.5 [1.8.5-r1] (-uclibc) 514 kB 
[ebuild  NS   ] sys-devel/automake-1.8.5-r2  (-uclibc) 647 kB 
[ebuild  NS   ] sys-devel/automake-1.6.3  (-uclibc) 465 kB 
[ebuild  NS   ] sys-devel/automake-1.7.9  (-uclibc) 564 kB 
[ebuild  NS   ] sys-devel/automake-1.4_p6  (-uclibc) 366 kB 
[ebuild  N    ] sys-devel/automake-wrapper-1  0 kB 
[ebuild  NS   ] sys-devel/automake-1.9.3  (-uclibc) 720 kB 

One is an upgrade, which is fine of course, but the rest? Why is this? one version has served me well so far.

Again - these are in different SLOTs.
Word of advice: don't use --deep, then.
And the first one will actually be Downgraded, so you might think about this before commiting...

Same thing goes for autoconf, which wants to upgrade 2.59-r5 to 2.59-r6. More than upgrading, it wants to install 2.13 on my system as well. Why?

See above.

Further, portage thinks installing spamassassin would be a great idea, which has a lot of perl library dependancies as well. I'm not running a mailserver on my workstation so this is all stupid. Why would spamassassin be installed?

emerge gentoolkit if you haven't already, then

Code: Select all

equery depgraph spamassassin

willl tell you why it is pulled in.

Finally, portage wants to install sysvinit, which is currently not installed at all if I'm to believe portage. What would cause this to be required?

USE="sse msn icq dvd cdr ftp imap ssl mmx opengl alsa gnome gtk2 -gpm -qt -kde -arts -xmms -sdl"

That is only a small part of the story - USE flags are set in both make.global and make.defaults as well.
Do an

Code: Select all

emerge info

to get the full set of USE flags that are currently set.

[irf2003]

recently, the autoconf and automake wrappers were unmasked in portage,
these requires all the versions which emerge -uD recommended.
these are slotted, just like gcc.
with regards to spamassassin, if i'm not mistaken, this is required
for evolution 2.x.
hth
happy gentooing

[NiBe]

And why wouldn't you have two versions installed side-by-side ?

Simply because i fail to see a use for two versions of gcc. I've yet to find an app that depends on a specific version of gcc to compile.

It may even be required if you need to run 2 applications that need different versions to function - many system libraries are used in a variety of versions alongside one another.

I tend to see libs as a different thing. Applications typically use shared libraries all over the place, so this is only to expect. GCC however is a compiler (or set of), and though I cannot brag about exceptional knowledge of the workings on this area, I know of no applications that require a specific version of GCC. As far as I know, there's no reason for packages to break if GCC 3.3 is replaced by 3.4. I'm no guru on this topic however.

Check your /usr directory - chances are you have both python 2.1 and python 2.3 installed.
This is quite normal.

This system is fairly fresh, so only one version of python (2.3) is installed. python and python2 in /usr/bin are both symlinks to python2.3

Second, portage wants to intall six (6) new versions of automake for me.

Code: Select all

[ebuild     UD] sys-devel/automake-1.5 [1.8.5-r1] (-uclibc) 514 kB 
[ebuild  NS   ] sys-devel/automake-1.8.5-r2  (-uclibc) 647 kB 
[ebuild  NS   ] sys-devel/automake-1.6.3  (-uclibc) 465 kB 
[ebuild  NS   ] sys-devel/automake-1.7.9  (-uclibc) 564 kB 
[ebuild  NS   ] sys-devel/automake-1.4_p6  (-uclibc) 366 kB 
[ebuild  N    ] sys-devel/automake-wrapper-1  0 kB 
[ebuild  NS   ] sys-devel/automake-1.9.3  (-uclibc) 720 kB 

One is an upgrade, which is fine of course, but the rest? Why is this? one version has served me well so far.

Again - these are in different SLOTs.
Word of advice: don't use --deep, then.
And the first one will actually be Downgraded, so you might think about this before commiting...

Even without -D (--deep) portage wants to install these packages. It's correct though that my current automake will be downgraded. My bad.

Further, portage thinks installing spamassassin would be a great idea, which has a lot of perl library dependancies as well. I'm not running a mailserver on my workstation so this is all stupid. Why would spamassassin be installed?

emerge gentoolkit if you haven't already, then

Code: Select all

equery depgraph spamassassin

willl tell you why it is pulled in.

equery appears to fail at this. When trying to depgraph spamassassin it simply states:

Code: Select all

[ Searching for packages matching spamassassin... ]

And quits. This goes for both spamassassin and mail-filter/spamassassin. Other apps are no problem to graph however.

Finally, portage wants to install sysvinit, which is currently not installed at all if I'm to believe portage. What would cause this to be required?

USE="sse msn icq dvd cdr ftp imap ssl mmx opengl alsa gnome gtk2 -gpm -qt -kde -arts -xmms -sdl"

That is only a small part of the story - USE flags are set in both make.global and make.defaults as well.
Do an

Code: Select all

emerge info

to get the full set of USE flags that are currently set.

Very well, use flags are then: "X alsa apm avi berkdb bitmap-fonts cdr crypt cups dvd encode esd f77 fam foomaticdb fortran ftp gdbm gif gnome gtk gtk2 icq imagemagick imap imlib java jpeg libg++ libwww mad mikmod mmx motif mpeg msn ncurses nls oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib perl png python quicktime readline spell sse ssl svga tcpd tiff truetype x86 xml xml2 xv zlib"

[NiBe]

with regards to spamassassin, if i'm not mistaken, this is required
for evolution 2.x.

This would explain a thing or two, however my mail is filtered elsewere so spamassassin is still useless to me. Is there any way skip this package?
Evolution is working fine without it.

[rhill]

And why wouldn't you have two versions installed side-by-side ?

Simply because i fail to see a use for two versions of gcc. I've yet to find an app that depends on a specific version of gcc to compile.

It may even be required if you need to run 2 applications that need different versions to function - many system libraries are used in a variety of versions alongside one another.

I tend to see libs as a different thing. Applications typically use shared libraries all over the place, so this is only to expect. GCC however is a compiler (or set of), and though I cannot brag about exceptional knowledge of the workings on this area, I know of no applications that require a specific version of GCC. As far as I know, there's no reason for packages to break if GCC 3.3 is replaced by 3.4. I'm no guru on this topic however.

there are several packages that won't compile with 3.4 that will with 3.3.

besides that, as a general philosopy, backup plans are Good Things. gcc is a core element of the system. installing 3.4 with some sort of (soon to be detected fault or defect) and unmerging 3.3 could leave the user marooned, and thus is extremely foolish. it's similar to the reasoning behind keeping your old kernel as a backup when you install a new one.

[NiBe]

Very well, point(s) taken.

Now then, how can i stop spamassassin from being installed. According to the ebuild, spamassassin is a dependancy of evolution.
I do however have evolution installed already without spamassassin, as I mentioned earlier my mail is filtered elsewhere. My current version of evolution was built without spamassassin and works perfectly. I guess i could simply remove the mail-filter/spamassassin line in the ebuild but that seems like a very ugly way to solve my problem.
Masking the package made bad things(tm) occur. Doh!

[Maedhros]

Second, portage wants to intall six (6) new versions of automake for me.

Code: Select all

[ebuild     UD] sys-devel/automake-1.5 [1.8.5-r1] (-uclibc) 514 kB 
[ebuild  NS   ] sys-devel/automake-1.8.5-r2  (-uclibc) 647 kB 
[ebuild  NS   ] sys-devel/automake-1.6.3  (-uclibc) 465 kB 
[ebuild  NS   ] sys-devel/automake-1.7.9  (-uclibc) 564 kB 
[ebuild  NS   ] sys-devel/automake-1.4_p6  (-uclibc) 366 kB 
[ebuild  N    ] sys-devel/automake-wrapper-1  0 kB 
[ebuild  NS   ] sys-devel/automake-1.9.3  (-uclibc) 720 kB 

One is an upgrade, which is fine of course, but the rest? Why is this? one version has served me well so far.

No you haven't... the one package always used to install all the versions you see here. They just seem to have been split up, which makes more sense really. The reason you have to have several automakes is that they don't seem to be backwards compatible, and a lot of programmes use older versions.

[NiBe]

Here now... is it completely impossible to install evolution without it concidering spamassassins as a dependency?

[hielvc]

You could edit the ebuild but you would have to do that after every sync. You could try

Code: Select all

mkdir /etc/portage
echo " =mail-filter/spamassassin" > /etc/portage/package.mask

[TrueDFX]

You could edit the ebuild but you would have to do that after every sync.

unless you copy it to an overlay directory.

You could try

Code: Select all

mkdir /etc/portage
echo " =mail-filter/spamassassin" > /etc/portage/package.mask

Firstly, when you use an operator, you must include a version number. If you want to mask any version, lose the '='. Secondly, this will make portage abort when it checks dependencies for evolution.

[Windfall]

Maybe put mail-filter/spamassassin in /etc/portage/package.provided. Or do the Old, Deprecated Thing(tm) and inject it. No idea if there's a solution which feels right, though; and this doesn't, I'm afraid.

[irf2003]

I would say that is is ridiculous to have spamassassin (SA) as
a dependency, if evolution works fine without it, and the user does
not require it, then it should not be be there.
furtheremore, if i am not mistaken, SA, is not cosher as far as
GPL is concernered, so i wouldn't want to polute my system with
such things, even if it's the best since sliced bread...
hth
happy gentooing

[gentoo_lan]

I would say that is is ridiculous to have spamassassin (SA) as
a dependency, if evolution works fine without it, and the user does
not require it, then it should not be be there.
furtheremore, if i am not mistaken, SA, is not cosher as far as
GPL is concernered, so i wouldn't want to polute my system with
such things, even if it's the best since sliced bread...
hth
happy gentooing

If you don't want sa installed use another email client or edit the ebuild and stop complaining about it.

[GenKreton]

I would say that is is ridiculous to have spamassassin (SA) as
a dependency, if evolution works fine without it, and the user does
not require it, then it should not be be there.
furtheremore, if i am not mistaken, SA, is not cosher as far as
GPL is concernered, so i wouldn't want to polute my system with
such things, even if it's the best since sliced bread...
hth
happy gentooing

If you don't want sa installed use another web browser or edit the ebuild and stop complaining about it.

This is what use flags are for...

[NiBe]

If you don't want sa installed use another web browser or edit the ebuild and stop complaining about it.

As I said earlier, that's a rather ugly solution.

This is what use flags are for...

It ought to be a job for USE-flags. In this case however, spamassassin is a dependency, and there is nothing USE can do about it.

package.provided didn't help, and as I mentioned earlier: masking spamassassin causes portage to whine.

Ian: This is a matter of e-mail clients, not web browsers, and I happen to like evolution.

[Clansman]

And why wouldn't you have two versions installed side-by-side ?

Simply because i fail to see a use for two versions of gcc. I've yet to find an app that depends on a specific version of gcc to compile.

I use a custom compiled gcc to cross-compile binaries linked to uClibc for 386 architecture. That's another very good reason for having more than one gcc (and binutils and libc) installed at the same time. It's a good thing(tm)

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