Hi, Alan. On Sat, May 14, 2011 at 12:51:14PM +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote: > Apparently, though unproven, at 12:31 on Saturday 14 May 2011, Alan Mackenzie > did opine thusly:
> > 1. Where is it specified what is in "system" in the same way that > > "world" is in the file /var/lib/portage/world? > That is defined in your system profile, not by you. > /etc/make.profile is a symlink to something in $PORTDIR/profiles/ and that > defines the profile you are using. A profile is nothing more than a bunch of > files that define what your basic system consists of - things like minimum > packages to install, things that must not be installed, starting point for > USE > flags, etc etc. > Profiles are cascading, meaning that more specific profiles can include other > more general ones, defined in files called "parent". These contain paths to > other directories (which themselves can have parents), and the whole lots os > recursively traversed from the bottom up till all the branches dead-end. The > full complete set of data you get out of all that is your complete profile. > The specific files that define the system set are called "packages" OK. Some of these directories have got three parents. ;-) The people deciding what goes into the "packages"es must have very steady hands. > > 2. How does emerge know which mutt to build when I do "emerge mutt"? > > There are three candidate files in /usr/portage/mail-client/mutt, e.g. > > mutt-1.5.21-r1.ebuild. > It will pick the ebuild with the highest version number, modified by your > rules concerning ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=, unmasked and masked packages. > If your system is set to stable (ACCEPT_KEYOWRDS=amd64 for example), it will > pick between mutt-1.5.20-r18 and mutt-1.5.21-r1 as those are both stable. > Usually it will be 1.5.21-r1 as that is the most recent version. Normally you > will find two or more stable versions for most packages. This is by design so > that if an update on a stable system by chance breaks something, you still > have an earlier version to fall back on should the need arise. OK, I get it. > If your system is set to unstable (ACCEPT_KEYOWRDS=~amd64 for example), it > will pick mutt-1.5.21-r2 as that version is unstable (displayed with a > ~ symbol next to it in output). I think I'll leave the unstable stuff alone. > Sometimes you get packages that are masked, indicated with [m] or [M]. These > are for lunatics to test, and there are rules concerning masking that you can > use to free these up for use (it's all in the man pages). Mutt does not have > any such packages but nvidia-drivers for example does. You must take explicit > steps to obtain the latest version. This is so that the odds of validly being > able to blame anyone at all when nvidia trashes your system are reduced to > exactly zero. > Do you have eix installed? You should, great tool, and makes figuring all > this > out a whole lot easier. I've got it now. I'll go and have a look at it's /usr/share/doc / man page. Thanks! > -- > alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
