On Tuesday 22 February 2005 12:14 am, John Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Monday 21 February 2005 21:41, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote: > > In may cases a user may know what command (or file) they want but > > don't have any idea what category or package gentoo has placed it's > > provider. AFAIK, there's no way to ask portage this type of question, > > if there is: how? Is an enchanment to portage for this functionality > > in the works; maybe a GLEP? I understand there are difficulties to > > this type of indexing in gentoo (use flags; other types of conditions > > in ebuilds [like has_nptl]; etc.) but I'm sure it's possible, can any > > portage experts or gentoo-devs weigh in on this? > > I've been thinking about the same thing for a while now. The best I can > come up with so far is to have a system which runs (voluntarily, and not > by default!) on peoples' systems and reports the file list and > compilation environment for each emerge back to a central server. That > server could analyze the data, and allow users to search for files or > whatever amd return what needs to be installed, and how (USE flags, > etc.) in order to get that file. Short of emerging every package (which > is of course impossible), I don't see another way really to do it.
Fake the merge upstream so that the files that would be emerged are recorded, but not actually installed, and the package is not recorded in world. [So, no confilcting packages. :)] Then, you can (theoretically, given enough time and processor power) emerge every package with every option (USE, CHOST, etc., etc.) and index it. Since you are faking the installation, you don't even have to do real compiling/linking, just touch the output files; it wouldn't detect all emerges that were borked, but it would generate good indexes. :) [I can't figure out how to fake configure though...] You could do the self-reporting, but it's problematic because you don't want 5cr|pt ki66ies reporting bad infos just to be malicious. [Crypto doesn't help much here, BTW.] -- Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy -- [email protected] mailing list
