On 2006.05.16 16:15, Stephen Bennett wrote:
If noone has any strong reasonable objections, I'd like to add a
Paludis profile to the tree. This would use Paludis as the default
provider for virtual/portage (which is a less than ideal name, but
that
is another discussion entirely), and provide ebuild devs with a place
where they can try out some of our profile enhancements should they
want to. It is worth noting on the last point that most of these are
long-standing Portage feature requests, at least some of which are
planned for inclusion in Portage at some point in the future. This
would allow devs access to them earlier, as a sort of testbed.
The next question is where to put it. The options as I see them are
under default-linux/x86/ or in a top-level paludis/ a la hardened,
selinux, embedded, and the like. The latter is easier to exclude for
those worried about tree size, though the impact there should be
minimal. Neither way produces significantly more duplication, since we
can make use of multiple profile inheritance. If anyone has any
preference or other input, I'd like to hear it.
That's my proposal. The benefits I like to think are obvious. The
drawbacks are, as far as I can see, in tree size, which should be
minimal. Those concerned about local tree size can exclude it, and for
size on the mirrors it's trivial compared to the rest of the tree.
Comments?
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Hi all,
Being new to this list and having read every post since just before
this discussion started, I feel its time for a generic summing up.
There are a number of interesting questions arising from the thread
along the lines of
1) Should the Gentoo tree support alternative package managers at all?
2) Should the tree be changed to enable experimental support to be
added for alternative package managers?
3) Do alternative package managers have to be (at least) backwards
compatible with Portage?
4) Should Portage be replaced by one (or more) of the alternatives?
I'm deliberately avoiding the use of any names because Portage is the
incumbent package manager and the questions have only been raised by
one alternative package manager *so far*.
Question 1) and 2) can be answered in the same breath. If its decided
that alternative package managers will be supported then any required
changes to make that possible are inferred, if indeed, its not actually
possible at the moment. 1) is really a political/policy question, not
a software engineering question, so should be determined by the council.
3) The answer has to be, as a minimum, alternate package managers need
to be able to build on what Portage has already installed. That is, be
backwards compatible. There is no need for users to have an 'undo'
feature short of a reinstall. Experimental packages are just that, if
you really might not be able to take the consequences, don't
experiment. That's no different than for any other package now.
4) This does not even arise until satisfactory answers have been
obtained to 1) and 2) and any potential Portage replacement has
undergone a period of testing. However, there has to be a a way of
migrating the user base to any new package manager should Portage
become depreciated. Again, just like any other package.
When alternate package manager(s) are proved to safely (no worse than
portage) do everything from install to maintenance, there may be an
interim stage where users can choose to install using package manager
'A' or package manager 'B', knowing that they cannot switch without a
reinstall.
There is no package in the tree that is sacrosanct - not even Portage.
Gentoo must evolve (all of it) or die. The process is all self evident,
its the same process that's followed for every other package in the
tree.
You probably don't want my views but here they are anyway.
1) Yes - packages managers are just packages, like every other package.
2) Yes - in a generic way. No special concessions to any particular
package manager. I know its not like that at the moment because Portage
defined Gentoo. Looking into the distant future, we can expect Package
Managers to be replaced like other packages.
3) I'm ambivalent - I'm a user not a dev.
4) Only time will tell.
Regards,
Roy Bamford
(NeddySeagoon)
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