[gentoo-dev] [Volunteers needed] Communicating use (and existence) of USE_PYTHON
Hello, to better communicate USE_PYTHON we could use: - a portage news entry - notifications from within ebuilds - a users guide counterpart of http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/Python/developersguide.xml - mentioning in 'man make.conf' This is overdue and has some urgency. Are you volunteering to get this going? Feel free to derive from http://blog.hartwork.org/?p=972. As it involves a GLEP and GuideXML maybe that's perfect for involving people being recruited at the moment. Thanks for your consideration. Best, Sebastian
Re: [gentoo-dev] [Volunteers needed] Communicating use (and existence) of USE_PYTHON
On 03-12-2010 11:35:14 +0100, Sebastian Pipping wrote: to better communicate USE_PYTHON we could use: - a portage news entry why portage? - notifications from within ebuilds - a users guide counterpart of http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/Python/developersguide.xml - mentioning in 'man make.conf' why? make.conf is for custom settings for Portage. Python ebuilds should solve this, preferably matching the slots of python being installed. This is overdue and has some urgency. Are you volunteering to get this going? Feel free to derive from http://blog.hartwork.org/?p=972. As it involves a GLEP and GuideXML maybe that's perfect for involving people being recruited at the moment. Why a GLEP? The only thing you can do just now, is to make USE_PYTHON default to something people would expect, and to be properly documented, such that it turns up in search result somewhere at the top. (Last time I needed it, I couldn't find it any more.) -- Fabian Groffen Gentoo on a different level
Re: [gentoo-dev] [Volunteers needed] Communicating use (and existence) of USE_PYTHON
On Fri, 03 Dec 2010 11:35:14 +0100 Sebastian Pipping sp...@gentoo.org wrote: to better communicate USE_PYTHON we could use: The first question that comes into my mind is -- why do we need to communicate that? I think that USE_PYTHON is a pretty specific variable which should be used only if specially required (i.e. to keep multiple Python versions ready for use). What needs to be fixed IMO is the default value of that variable. If you already disabled switching the active Python version by default, you should also make the Python eclass base its' USE_PYTHON defaults on the active Python version. - notifications from within ebuilds Unnecessary repeated complaints are always helpful to users. I think that an elog after Python upgrade should be sufficient. - mentioning in 'man make.conf' Not related. We don't describe VIDEO_CARDS, LIRC_DEVICES etc. in that file too. -- Best regards, Michał Górny signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] [Volunteers needed] Communicating use (and existence) of USE_PYTHON
On 12/03/10 12:50, Fabian Groffen wrote: On 03-12-2010 11:35:14 +0100, Sebastian Pipping wrote: to better communicate USE_PYTHON we could use: - a portage news entry why portage? I'm speaking of GLEP 42. No idea if pkgcore or paludis support these. That's why i said portage. http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0042.html - notifications from within ebuilds - a users guide counterpart of http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/Python/developersguide.xml - mentioning in 'man make.conf' why? make.conf is for custom settings for Portage. Good point. Still, as of now that's where to put USE_PYTHON. I'm unsure if that's a reason strong enough to add it. As it involves a GLEP and GuideXML maybe that's perfect for involving people being recruited at the moment. Why a GLEP? It involves usage of a GLEP, not creating a new one. Sorry, if I did not put this clearly. Best, Sebastian
Re: [gentoo-dev] [Volunteers needed] Communicating use (and existence) of USE_PYTHON
On 12/03/10 13:05, Michał Górny wrote: The first question that comes into my mind is -- why do we need to communicate that? I think that USE_PYTHON is a pretty specific variable which should be used only if specially required (i.e. to keep multiple Python versions ready for use). What needs to be fixed IMO is the default value of that variable. If you already disabled switching the active Python version by default, you should also make the Python eclass base its' USE_PYTHON defaults on the active Python version. USE_PYTHON hits people when emerging a new 2.x slot. Say they have 2.6 installed and add 2.7 to that. I agree, that its default value may need re-consideration. After that, patches to the python eclass are needed. Depending on how fast we can fix that, communicating status quo before that may still help reduce user frustration. Especially as we have an unmasked 2.7.1 in tree for a few days now. - mentioning in 'man make.conf' Not related. We don't describe VIDEO_CARDS, LIRC_DEVICES etc. in that file too. Yes, but that's USE_EXPAND stuff - USE_PYTHON is different, at least at the moment. You may still be right, though. Sebastian
Re: [gentoo-dev] [Volunteers needed] Communicating use (and existence) of USE_PYTHON
On 12/03/10 13:23, Sebastian Pipping wrote: Good point. Still, as of now that's where to put USE_PYTHON. ^^^ referring to /etc/make.conf itself. I'm unsure if that's a reason strong enough to add it. ^^^ referring to the man page of 'make.conf'. Sebastian
Re: [gentoo-dev] [Volunteers needed] Communicating use (and existence) of USE_PYTHON
On Fri, 03 Dec 2010 13:29:14 +0100 Sebastian Pipping sp...@gentoo.org wrote: Depending on how fast we can fix that, communicating status quo before that may still help reduce user frustration. Especially as we have an unmasked 2.7.1 in tree for a few days now. Then the question would be -- if that version causes so much trouble and requires a careful re-consideration of upgrade schema, why didn't anyone mask it yet? -- Best regards, Michał Górny signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] [Volunteers needed] Communicating use (and existence) of USE_PYTHON
On 12/03/10 14:16, Michał Górny wrote: Then the question would be -- if that version causes so much trouble and requires a careful re-consideration of upgrade schema, why didn't anyone mask it yet? I didn't dare to. Sebastian
Re: [gentoo-dev] [Volunteers needed] Communicating use (and existence) of USE_PYTHON
On 12/03/2010 07:05 AM, Michał Górny wrote: On Fri, 03 Dec 2010 11:35:14 +0100 Sebastian Pipping sp...@gentoo.org wrote: to better communicate USE_PYTHON we could use: The first question that comes into my mind is -- why do we need to communicate that? I think that USE_PYTHON is a pretty specific variable which should be used only if specially required (i.e. to keep multiple Python versions ready for use). I tend to agree. For a user who doesn't actually USE python, but just has it installed because half of the rest of the system doesn't work without it, python is just another dependency. If a package only works with python v1.2, then it should depend on the appropriate slot/etc. If a user actually USES python, then they should have a mechanism to tell the system what versions of python to keep around. If you could put slots in the world file that might do the trick, but this variable seems like a reasonable way to do it as well. What needs to be fixed IMO is the default value of that variable. If you already disabled switching the active Python version by default, you should also make the Python eclass base its' USE_PYTHON defaults on the active Python version. I tend to agree here as well. The distro should manage the version used for distro packages. Maybe a user wants to do cutting-edge development work in python-v12. The system should still use a sane version of python to run portage/etc, unless the user specifically tells it to do otherwise. Rather than hard-coding this in every package a distro-wide default probably makes sense. When new versions of python are deemed acceptable for distro-wide use the default can be updated. Gentoo has to work reasonably well without having to micro-manage python versions. Users shouldn't have to figure out what version of python they want to run to do an install. Rich
