On Thursday 21 December 2006 19:36, Uwe Thiem wrote: > On 21 December 2006 18:40, Neil Bothwick wrote: > > package.provided is intended for use when you install something > > without portage - it's your way of telling portage the package is > > installed even though it's not in the database. > > What is that good for? Say I write my own app (like the one my > signature refers to) and install it system-wide without creating an > ebuild, what does it change if I put it into package.provided? I mean > portage doesn't know anything about it either way.
package.provided is not there for that purpose. It's there for cases when a package should be present but portage hasn't installed it (like highly custom kernels) and you don't intend for portage to ever install it either. But portage insists that a kernel must be present. So you tell it that _you_ have provided one yourself. It's all a bit of a hack and a dodge because 'emerge world' tends to obliterate your provideds anyway (according to some arcane man page somewhere....), and it seems to be very much an edge case for those 3 people in the whole world that need/want it. Myself, I have never used it. If it's not in portage, I write my own ebuild, or put it in /usr/local alan -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
