On Wed, May 29, 2019 at 6:37 PM <n952...@web.de> wrote: > > The next section of the response to my attempt to update portage is a long > list of packages, each terminated with a "(masked by: something or other)". > > What does that tell me. If it's masked, it shouldn't be available, right? > But, I've got it: > > - virtual/perl-parent-0.234.0-r1::gentoo (masked by: package.mask) > > ls virtual/perl-parent/perl-parent-0.234.0-r1.ebuild > virtual/perl-parent/perl-parent-0.234.0-r1.ebuild > > Can I get rid of it? Is perl-parent always masked? >
I think one of the issues here is that you might be running a bit with scissors. It seems like you might be using package.keywords, and now you're dealing with package masks. Portage will let you override just about anything, but those default behaviors all exist for a reason and you can easily end up painting yourself into a corner. Overriding keywords is something that isn't too unsafe to do once you know what you're doing, but if you're doing it a lot it can get out of hand (adding keywords for one package can require 3 more, and if you keep that up it can really get out of hand). If you're overriding keywords frequently perhaps you should be running the testing branch in the first place, etc. Overriding masks is something that should only be done if you REALLY know what you're doing. If something is masked it might contain security vulnerabilities, or it might be going away. The consequences of the former are obvious. If it is going away then you're going to be fighting to keep things working because the next step will be removal and other packages will start being modified to not work with the old approach. Basically, any setting you put in /etc/portage is something you're going to have to work to maintain, so you should be doing whatever you can to minimize this. By all means speak up on the list about "I'm trying to accomplish this, and is there a better way to go about it?" If you're creating a ton of entries in /etc/portage you might be fighting the package manager more than necessary. There is nothing wrong with customizing things (that is basically what Gentoo is for), but you definitely need to learn how to manage that so that you don't make life hard on yourself. -- Rich
