> I ran gentoo on a system for a few days earlier this year, right up to > where my system became a casualty of an emerge limitation, > documented at > http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/portage-manual.xml : > > Warning: Unmerging packages can be dangerous. If you remove any > core packages your system may cease to function and the > removal of > various libraries may cause software to fail. Portage > does not warn > you if you are removing core packages or dependencies for other > packages. > > This seems like a critical limitation to me. It means that > unless I have a > deep understanding of the dependencies among packages, the number of > packages on my system can only grow. > > In general, Gentoo seems to be quite well architected, and > this limitation > sticks out like a sore thumb to me. What is the rationale? > Is it on the > "to be fixed" list, or is it intentional? If it's intentional, how do > people maintain systems over the long term without > re-installing every so > often?
First, this is being addressed as we speak... There is a program called qpkg, that addresses this. you can run it and it will tell you if anything is dependant on it or not.. Let us know when you get gentoo running and we would be more then happy to help you figure it out. > I'm searching for a Linux distro to switch to (I'm one of > those Red Hat > customers being left in the lurch), and Gentoo seems really > nice, *except* > for this one problem, so some enlightenment would really be > appreciated. Fedora is the new version of redhat, fyi.. As a former redhat hater, I mean user, you will find that gentoo is more then redhat wished they could have been. Rpm is horrible. The reverse dependencies will be ironed out soon. Even if they don't, gpkg, and a little knowledge of your system is all that is needed. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
