Dale wrote: > Holger Hoffstaette wrote: >> On Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:38:56 +0100, Mike Auty wrote: >>> Marius Mauch wrote: >>> >>>> Maybe the best solution is to drop the non-prefixed versions of 'world' >>>> and 'system' completely .... >>>> >>> Deprecating the old syntax sounds like a sensible action to get people >>> shifted onto the new system. I imagine it would work very similarly to >>> "emerge info" at the moment? >>> >> Speaking purely as a user, from a usability perspective it's a horrible >> idea. Don't make me remember special things. To me there is no >> discernible difference between "system" and "@system", except that I have >> to remember to prefix the latter over and over again. Different things >> need different names. Well you might well have other sets, like @kde4 or anything you like, which would be up to you to maintain as a user.
>> Doesn't portage have more pressing problems? In the >> last 6 years of using Gentoo I cannot remember a single instance where >> the difference between system and world even mattered to me from an >> operational point of view. >> I've seen it most for new installs, where the user might use 'emerge -e system' to get the base stuff built for their specific CPU, followed by 'emerge -uDN world'. For major gcc upgrades, it's common to want to use 'emerge -e system' first followed by 'emerge -e (world - system)' which is an approach emwrap[1] pioneered. Personally I don't see much point to the first -e system, since major gcc upgrades are really only a breakage issue for C++ apps (paludis has in the past stopped working after a gcc upgrade of this sort, which can be an issue if there is no way to use another package manager to get it rebuilt, which is the recommended config.) update[2] does the recommended (based on various user posts, can be tweaked ofc) order for any toolchain packages (extended def'n if $compiler is in the list, including things like automake if there's a new version) which appear for any emptyTree build, prior to the rest of the list. This makes 'update -e world' pretty good for gcc upgrades (it'll skip a major gcc upgrade in other circumstances, so that your system isn't left inconsistent.) > Also speaking as a user, I confuse pretty easily and you can ask anyone > on gentoo-user about that. However, I see the difference between > @system and system. The same for world or at least a good idea anyway. > Afaict there is no difference between system and @system. The question is whether world and @world can coexist with different meanings, provided the user hasn't run 'emerge system' (or @system) which atm makes the @system set part of @world. (Confused? You will be ;) This is useful for user- or profile-defined sets, eg for the earlier example, emerge @kde4 would make the @kde4 set part of @world (by reference; @kde4 is put into world, not the individual packages from it, so it can be maintained as a separate list.) A user wishing to avoid @system being part of @world can set world-candidate=false in /etc/portage/sets.conf, to keep using @system and @world separately. (see /usr/share/portage/config/sets.conf for examples.) > I have to also say that I like being able to type in emerge -uvDN world > and letting my system upgrade everything that needs upgrading. It's > simple, easy and not so much typing. > I can somewhat understand the need > for @system and @world but think both can live together pretty well. Yeah I agree; I don't think every user is going to be interested in sets, and I see it as a minor, encapsulated, special-case in code terms, whereas it has pretty major impact on end-users (and will cause support hassle.) As soon as you type @foo you know you're in set-land. > I do think there should be some sort of notice for those users that do > not follow -dev, -user and/or the forums tho. That has been a issue for > a long time. There does not seem to be a clear cut way to inform all > Gentoo users except during a emerge. Yeah although the news item thing did get accepted as a GLEP, and afaik the package managers support them, I've never actually seen a news item in the console. Maybe I'm doing something wrong again.. > Thing is, emerge -uvDN world will do the same as it always has from my understanding. > Well it'll tell you that usage is deprecated, and until you emerge system (or @system) it won't be considering those packages as part of world. (I believe it will be added automatically on upgrade from 2.1 to 2.2 for stable.) Once you do, it'll require a bit more to do an emerge -e @system && emerge -e @world. If you are keeping them separate, you'll need emerge -uDN @system @world, aiui. Hence the desire to keep 'world' meaning what it always has, irrespective of the sets.conf. As I said before, I consider this minor tweaking to cli usage for major new functionality, which I think is really cool stuff. Whichever way the portage devs decide to go, kudos to them for what they've come up with. [1] http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-282474.html [2] http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-546828.html
