On Saturday 09 April 2005 02:41, Eric S. Johansson wrote:
Neil Bothwick wrote:
On Thu, 07 Apr 2005 16:03:53 -0400, Eric S. Johansson wrote:
Seriously, I have a half a dozen machines running here and the fact that I have to spend hours every couple of weeks to update
Why does it take hours to type "emerge world -uavD", review the results and press Enter? Gentoo is a prime example of why the command line can be more efficient than a GUI.
how well does that scale? Assume ten machines. Then you have ten windows open, ten machines running updates and then when they are all done, ten machines updating their configurations. Now, multiply by 10 to 100 machines or even more. Of all the distributions gentoo has the greatest possibility of surviving that scaling without needing a forklift but it sure needs a significant amount of transparent automation.
where is the problem? One machine build binary packages, the others suck the packages from the master?
all machines are different some more than others. But yes if they were identical one could do that except for the fact that there is no reporting mechanism for failures or what configuration file need updating.
but even if I could extract everything from standard out/standard error, in order for me to automate things I need one more piece of information. I need the original installed packages configuration files. This query highlights the fact that sealed boxes, even if you can modify the source code, are an impediment to advancing but one can do.
But taking my example for a moment, let's say I use dnsmasq. I need the original version of dnsmasq.conf if the new package installed says there's a difference that needs human attention in order to truly determine if human attention is needed.
manual tracking doesn't cut it because its way too error prone. The information is already present prior to package installation and differences are detected during package installation. I'm just not sure how to gain access at the right time to the original configuration file before the original package is deleted.
and that's just one model of how the close box doesn't work well. Personally, I would have made the configuration update tool a server and make the client gave it to control multiple servers. Now that would be a nice thing to have and not all that difficult to build if you can strip the user interface off of Portage.
and don't go getting all indignant over security issues. It a solved problem for anyone who has read professional journals.
So, I do not see, where your problem is (except the time wasted waiting for the 'master' but then there is distcc...), and how a graphical interface could solve this probs.
sorry, that dog won't hunt. gui != good ui
if you think with a narrow enough focus, there is no problem. But I frequently exist outside the box.
---eric
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