On Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:45:27 -0400, Robert Bradbury <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 11:39 AM, Victor Ostorga > <[email protected]>wrote: > >> >> I don't know the history about init systems category, but obviously is >> necessary to stablish a category into which init systems should live >> happy forever (sys-init ? app-init? foobar?). >> >> > I don't know what you want to call it, "sys-init" perhaps. But it, and a > number of other packages, e.g. sys-apps/util-linux (which includes mount > and > fsck), openrc, bash, udev, etc. belong in a "special" category for > "packages > which could prevent the system from booting or corrupt file systems" if the > emerges do not work perfectly. I get hung up once or twice a year by > semi-auto-emerging a package not realizing that it is a potential > show-stopper that should be closely monitored (or which should require an > immediate system reboot to see if it broke anything). In contrast, you > could break any of the various X libraries, browsers, etc. and still have a > system from which one could fall back/forward. > > Right now one only knows if an emerge is "N"ew or an "U"pgrade with little > indication as to how badly it could go wrong. > > As far as I know there is no "critical packages" list (or class) which > include those that are likely to create much bigger headaches than common > emerge failures (for example this would include all executables used by the > init/openrc processes) which under ideal circumstances would be part of a > single package that could be compiled with a "static" option.
But there's one... That what the "system" set is about in first place. We could argue if creating a new category would be any good or not, that's a different issue. But there's already a list of packages that's considered critical for a Gentoo system. That's what "system" is, and you will get a big red waning when trying to uninstall one package belonging to this category. -- Jesús Guerrero
