Are you using maintainer-needed packages?

Message

comprookie2000 · Post by **comprookie2000** » Mon Aug 23, 2010 11:33 pm

If you would like to get involved and fix some bugs, this script will show you which maintainer-needed packages you use. You may be able to help out.

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 3:25 am

I think that this script would better integrate with UNIX pipes if the output was restricted to package atoms. Is there any chance that it could be modified to include overlays, possibly with some flags controlling what it displays?

Would you mind making an ebuild for this script and committing it to portage? That way anyone that wants to know the answer to this question in #gentoo could just be told to do emerge sys-apps/maintainer-needed && maintainer-needed.

Lastly, under which license is this script being released? If you have not decided yet, may I cast my vote for a BSD license?

comprookie2000 · Post by **comprookie2000** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 8:44 am

The script was developed by Ewoud Kohl Van Wijngaarden, It is located on the Maintainer-Needed packages page. I thought it was nice so I passed it along.

iss · Post by **iss** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 10:59 am

So it tells I'm using following packages:

Code: Select all

- app-benchmarks/bootchart
- app-i18n/enca
- app-text/uudeview
- dev-libs/gdome2
- dev-libs/libconfig
- dev-libs/libx86
- dev-util/gperf
- dev-vcs/subversion
- media-libs/glew
- media-libs/libwmf
- net-libs/libvncserver
- net-libs/neon
- net-misc/telnet-bsd
- net-misc/vidalia
- sys-devel/dev86

Most of which I have no idea what they are for (besides that something else depends on them).
Most interest I have in vidalia, which is really nice and easy tor GUI.
Bootchart is sometimes useful. Telnet-bsd has at least two other alternatives.
For everything else I don't know if I should even care. I will probably learn it in brutal way, when something will stop working without it.

So what can average user do to help keep his favorite package in portage?

ppurka · Post by **ppurka** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 12:06 pm

Apparently I am using the following:

Code: Select all

The following 12 installed package(s) need a maintainer
- app-arch/rar
- app-misc/ompload
- dev-libs/libconfig
- dev-libs/libx86
- dev-util/gperf
- dev-util/yacc
- dev-vcs/subversion
- media-libs/glew
- media-libs/libwmf
- net-libs/neon
- sys-apps/usb_modeswitch
- x11-libs/libsvg-cairo

I am surprised subversion came into that. No gentoo dev uses subversion?!

I have manually installed only rar, ompload and usb_modeswitch. If ompload goes away, then I will simply upload stuff using browser. rar has a free counterpart (unrar), but I think that package can not compress. usb_modeswitch is required for usb mobile broadband. But none of these have any serious bugs open.

The rest of the packages are probably dependencies of some other package. Many of them have open bugs.

rh1 · Post by **rh1** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 3:14 pm

Could someone help me on where this comes from:

Code: Select all

from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup

Script keeps failing on my laptop because it can't find BeautifulSoup.

comprookie2000 · Post by **comprookie2000** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 3:18 pm

dev-python/beautifulsoup HTML/XML parser for quick-turnaround applications like screen-scraping.

yngwin · Post by **yngwin** » Wed Aug 25, 2010 11:48 am

ppurka wrote:I am surprised subversion came into that. No gentoo dev uses subversion?!

I think there are very few. The one who used to maintain it has just been kicked out.

kernelOfTruth · Post by **kernelOfTruth** » Wed Aug 25, 2010 12:05 pm

./maintainer-needed.py
The following 39 installed package(s) need a maintainer
- app-admin/ide-smart
- app-admin/logsentry
- app-arch/arc
- app-arch/arj
- app-arch/lha
- app-arch/makeself
- app-arch/rar
- app-arch/unarj
- app-arch/zoo
- app-crypt/chntpw
- app-i18n/enca
- app-i18n/man-pages-de
- app-misc/wipe
- app-text/antiword
- dev-db/sqliteodbc
- dev-db/unixODBC
- dev-lang/orc
- dev-libs/beecrypt
- dev-libs/hyphen
- dev-libs/libaio
- dev-libs/libconfig
- dev-libs/libtommath
- dev-libs/libx86
- dev-libs/newt
- dev-libs/pakchois
- dev-libs/xapian
- dev-util/gperf
- dev-vcs/subversion
- gnome-extra/hardware-monitor
- media-libs/glew
- media-libs/libwmf
- net-firewall/fwbuilder
- net-libs/libfwbuilder
- net-libs/libvncserver
- net-libs/neon
- net-misc/jigdo
- net-misc/knock
- sys-fs/ddrescue
- sys-power/suspend

warrens · Post by **warrens** » Sat Aug 28, 2010 1:46 am

Code: Select all

The following 8 installed package(s) need a maintainer
- app-i18n/enca
- app-i18n/man-pages-zh_CN
- dev-lang/orc
- dev-libs/libx86
- dev-util/gperf
- media-libs/pdflib
- net-libs/libvncserver
- net-libs/neon

These are not in my world file, they are pulled in as deps.

L29Ah · Post by **L29Ah** » Mon Apr 14, 2025 2:48 pm

Would be nice if there was an updated script that also looked into installed overlays. ::guru has plenty of such packages.

Post by **Banana** » Mon Apr 14, 2025 5:43 pm

L29Ah wrote:Would be nice if there was an updated script that also looked into installed overlays. ::guru has plenty of such packages.

maybe this thirdparty list/overview can help:
https://repology.org/projects/?inrepo=g ... utdated=on

Goverp · Post by **Goverp** » Mon Apr 14, 2025 6:16 pm

L29Ah, Banana,

This thread is 15 years old! When I tried the script it gave me a python error, and the Maintainers-Needed packages page referenced above no longer exists. It's the crucial source for the script to function....

I agree with the idea that a script that also handled overlays might be useful.

Post by **Banana** » Tue Apr 15, 2025 7:29 am

Goverp wrote:L29Ah, Banana,

This thread is 15 years old! When I tried the script it gave me a python error, and the Maintainers-Needed packages page referenced above no longer exists. It's the crucial source for the script to function....

I agree with the idea that a script that also handled overlays might be useful.

I'm aware of that and that is why I mentioned the link which could be used to find those packages in the guru overlay.

L29Ah · Post by **L29Ah** » Tue Apr 15, 2025 10:50 am

Code: Select all

pquery --installed --atom | pquery --atom --maintainer maintainer-needed -

Thanks, pkgcore!

Goverp · Post by **Goverp** » Tue Apr 15, 2025 2:24 pm

Drat, got beaten to it.
Here's mine, in pure shell, with a modicum of grep:
<edit>Fixed the parameter list handling</edit>

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

### List all installed packages marked as maintainer needed
# Syntax:  maintainer-needed [ all | repo... ]
# Default: maintainer-needed gentoo

set -e

# Filter to list installed packages from the grep output
testPkg() {
        local file pkg
        while read -r file
        do
                pkg="${file%/"${Metafile}"}"    # Strip of the metadata filename

                # shellcheck disable=SC2231
                for file in $Vdb/$pkg-*         # Need to expand the wildcard 'cos vdb has versioned package names
                do
                        [ -e "$file" ] && printf '%s::%s\n' "$pkg" "$repo"
                        # We don't care about versions, so quit after first
                        # Note that if no files matched, $file gets set to the wildcarded string
                        # Hence the need for the "-e $file" test above
                        break
                done
        done
}

mn='maintainer-needed'
Metafile='metadata.xml'

Vdb=$(portageq vdb_path)

case "$1" in
all)    repos=$(portageq get_repos /) ;;
'')     repos='gentoo' ;;
*)      repos="$*" ;;
esac

for repo in $repos
do
        cd "$(portageq get_repo_path / "$repo")"
        grep -RFl "$mn" --include="$Metafile" | testPkg
done

Post by **pietinger** » Tue Apr 15, 2025 2:32 pm

Moved from Gentoo Chat to Documentation, Tips & Tricks.

Goverp · Post by **Goverp** » Tue Apr 15, 2025 2:35 pm

And for what it's worth, the output for my system, for all repositories.
Somewhat concerning how many packages need maintainers.

Code: Select all

dev-libs/fastText::guru
acct-group/scanner::gentoo
acct-group/usb::gentoo
acct-user/saned::gentoo
app-arch/pax::gentoo
app-crypt/mhash::gentoo
app-crypt/p11-kit::gentoo
app-crypt/paperkey::gentoo
app-dicts/myspell-en::gentoo
app-emulation/simh::gentoo
app-eselect/eselect-pinentry::gentoo
app-eselect/eselect-unison::gentoo
app-forensics/rkhunter::gentoo
app-misc/gramps::gentoo
app-portage/ufed::gentoo
app-text/asciidoc::gentoo
app-text/convertlit::gentoo
app-text/docbook-xsl-stylesheets::gentoo
app-text/unpaper::gentoo
dev-cpp/clucene::gentoo
dev-db/sqlcipher::gentoo
dev-db/unixODBC::gentoo
dev-libs/cyrus-sasl::gentoo
dev-libs/dbus-c++::gentoo
dev-libs/json-c::gentoo
dev-libs/libbytesize::gentoo
dev-libs/libconfig::gentoo
dev-libs/libdbusmenu::gentoo
dev-libs/libdbusmenu-qt::gentoo
dev-libs/libjcat::gentoo
dev-libs/libofx::gentoo
dev-libs/libx86emu::gentoo
dev-libs/libxls::gentoo
dev-libs/libxmlb::gentoo
dev-libs/opencl-icd-loader::gentoo
dev-libs/xapian::gentoo
dev-libs/xmlsec::gentoo
dev-libs/zziplib::gentoo
dev-util/opencl-headers::gentoo
mail-client/mailx::gentoo
mail-filter/bogofilter::gentoo
media-gfx/fbgrab::gentoo
media-gfx/potrace::gentoo
media-gfx/sane-backends::gentoo
media-gfx/scantailor-advanced::gentoo
media-libs/alsa-lib::gentoo
media-libs/alsa-topology-conf::gentoo
media-libs/alsa-ucm-conf::gentoo
media-libs/liblqr::gentoo
media-sound/alsa-utils::gentoo
media-sound/fluid-soundfont::gentoo
media-video/movit::gentoo
media-video/simplescreenrecorder::gentoo
net-firewall/ufw::gentoo
net-libs/libasyncns::gentoo
net-libs/liblockfile::gentoo
net-libs/neon::gentoo
net-libs/udns::gentoo
sci-geosciences/osm-gps-map::gentoo
sys-apps/gptfdisk::gentoo
sys-fs/cryfs::gentoo
sys-fs/ddrescue::gentoo
sys-libs/libblockdev::gentoo
sys-power/acpid::gentoo
virtual/mailx::gentoo
virtual/secret-service::gentoo
x11-apps/luit::gentoo
x11-terms/xterm::gentoo

bdguru · Post by **bdguru** » Wed May 14, 2025 1:45 pm

I'm curious about the impact of removing packages without maintainers. Do we usually see them replaced quickly, or does it lead to some packages becoming obsolete over time?

Navar · Post by **Navar** » Sat Jan 17, 2026 1:18 am

bdguru wrote:I'm curious about the impact of removing packages without maintainers. Do we usually see them replaced quickly, or does it lead to some packages becoming obsolete over time?

Subjective. I'll avoid rehashing past/present threads on the gentoo-dev mailing list, e.g.

My basic understanding of current day is this (others feel free to correct details, or if there is a comprehensive wiki entry on this very subject, please link):

* A bug notification for last rites staging is set on a package, which may be set for various <reasons> over the years
- 1. Long standing no dedicated maintainers
  2. Proxy maintainership not applying for <reasons>
  3. Unaddressed CVEs (which should almost always be addressed by upstream, unless we're ever fighting with 3rd party patches)
  4. An upstream considered "dead" for <reasons> (e.g. GNU screen went deprecated from RHEL8--don't recall if Gentoo looked at removal, I just recall this being an annoyance at work to address)
* Usually given a 90 day period of probation for someone to step up
* Something <core> as part of @system and lacking alternatives, may still be maintained by the devs for the time being to avoid impactful breakage

While I don't always agree with decisions made, there's always a lack of time/resources vs what is/can be made available. The devs usually have a fairly longstanding history of continuity enough that it's not unusual for some of us to have 10-15+ year old running and updated working fine installs. Some of the more painful bits can be a forced profile change, but they don't push those lightly in my experience, it's based upon need to move some things forward. I consider it one of the most stable environments you could run over time.

Navar · Post by **Navar** » Sat Jan 17, 2026 1:36 am

Goverp wrote:And for what it's worth, the output for my system, for all repositories.
Somewhat concerning how many packages need maintainers.

Yeah I seem to have a good number... just a recent 'new system world copy pasta rebuild' (lift-n-shift 2010 laptop to new) example:

$ ./bin/maintainer_needed.sh | wc -l # just on ::gentoo
67

Thank you for the generic script for modern day.