[gentoo-user] Re: nvidia warning comes a tad late
In 20090101213152.77d30...@krikkit, Neil Bothwick n...@digimed.co.uk wrote: On Thu, 1 Jan 2009 14:14:16 -0600, »Q« wrote: I guess I'm in the camp that thinks the administrator should know what modules are needed for the hardware, and portage should keep working as it does now. Then why the test and warning? I haven't advocated a test and warning. But why not? -- »Q« Kleeneness is next to Gödelness.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: nvidia warning comes a tad late
On Thu, 1 Jan 2009 16:39:53 -0600, »Q« wrote: I guess I'm in the camp that thinks the administrator should know what modules are needed for the hardware, and portage should keep working as it does now. Then why the test and warning? I haven't advocated a test and warning. But why not? That's the point of this thread, the ebuild does perform a test before installation, but goes ahead straight after the warning. Unless you are watching the screen at that exact moment, you won't know your system was broken until you read the post-emerge messages - and they won't appear in the terminal if a subsequent, unconnected, emerge fails. While it's better than no warning at all, it's completely arse-about-face. -- Neil Bothwick Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: nvidia warning comes a tad late
Am Donnerstag, 1. Januar 2009 23:39:53 schrieb »Q«: Then why the test and warning? I haven't advocated a test and warning. But why not? There _is_ a test and warning. See very first mail in this thread. Bye... Dirk signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
[gentoo-user] Re: nvidia warning comes a tad late
On Fri, 2 Jan 2009 12:35:15 +0100 Dirk Heinrichs dirk.heinri...@online.de wrote: Am Donnerstag, 1. Januar 2009 23:39:53 schrieb »Q«: Then why the test and warning? I haven't advocated a test and warning. But why not? There _is_ a test and warning. See very first mail in this thread. I've followed it all, and I know there's a test and warning. Just wasn't sure why Neil was asking *me* about why there's a warning. -- »Q« Kleeneness is next to Gödelness.
[gentoo-user] Re: nvidia warning comes a tad late
On Fri, 2 Jan 2009 11:26:20 + Neil Bothwick n...@digimed.co.uk wrote: On Thu, 1 Jan 2009 16:39:53 -0600, »Q« wrote: I guess I'm in the camp that thinks the administrator should know what modules are needed for the hardware, and portage should keep working as it does now. Then why the test and warning? I haven't advocated a test and warning. But why not? That's the point of this thread, the ebuild does perform a test before installation, but goes ahead straight after the warning. AFAIAC, the post-install log is exactly where the message belongs -- that's where I'd look if I'd broken my system. The fact that I don't think portage should prevent people from installing stuff doesn't mean I think there shouldn't be any information about what they've just installed. But you snipped without comment what I think was a better idea, just making the 177.x series no longer be an upgrade to the 173.x series. -- »Q« Kleeneness is next to Gödelness.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: nvidia warning comes a tad late
On Fri, 2 Jan 2009 09:09:23 -0600, »Q« wrote: That's the point of this thread, the ebuild does perform a test before installation, but goes ahead straight after the warning. AFAIAC, the post-install log is exactly where the message belongs -- that's where I'd look if I'd broken my system. Would it be better if your system wasn't broken? The fact that I don't think portage should prevent people from installing stuff doesn't mean I think there shouldn't be any information about what they've just installed. There is another option,and it's already used in other ebuilds. Warn and abort emerging that package unless the user has specified that it should be installed. But you snipped without comment what I think was a better idea, just making the 177.x series no longer be an upgrade to the 173.x series. Making different packages is one idea, but will still cause problems in the future. The latest package,whatever you name it, would be the correct one for7/8/9xxx cards,but at some time it would drop support for 7xxx cards. Maybe a better option would be a make.conf variable, like NVIDIA_VIDEO_CARD, that ebuilds would respect in deciding which versionto use. -- Neil Bothwick The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
[gentoo-user] Re: nvidia warning comes a tad late
In 20090102224554.57ea4...@krikkit, Neil Bothwick n...@digimed.co.uk wrote: On Fri, 2 Jan 2009 09:09:23 -0600, »Q« wrote: That's the point of this thread, the ebuild does perform a test before installation, but goes ahead straight after the warning. AFAIAC, the post-install log is exactly where the message belongs -- that's where I'd look if I'd broken my system. Would it be better if your system wasn't broken? Yes, but I continue not to believe that it should be portage's job to prevent me from installing things that break my system. The fact that I don't think portage should prevent people from installing stuff doesn't mean I think there shouldn't be any information about what they've just installed. There is another option,and it's already used in other ebuilds. Warn and abort emerging that package unless the user has specified that it should be installed. Is it only aborted if the command was --update world, or would it also be aborted if the problem package was part of some other set? (I hope the question makes sense -- I haven't followed all the newish stuff about sets of packages.) But you snipped without comment what I think was a better idea, just making the 177.x series no longer be an upgrade to the 173.x series. Making different packages is one idea, but will still cause problems in the future. The latest package,whatever you name it, would be the correct one for7/8/9xxx cards,but at some time it would drop support for 7xxx cards. Don't nVidia give it a new major version number when they drop support, so that the latest new package at that time would get a new name? If they *do* drop support even within a major version, my idea wouldn't stand a chance of working well. Maybe a better option would be a make.conf variable, like NVIDIA_VIDEO_CARD, that ebuilds would respect in deciding which versionto use. I like that idea better than mine. -- »Q« Kleeneness is next to Gödelness.
[gentoo-user] Re: nvidia warning comes a tad late
On 2009-01-02, ?Q? boxc...@gmx.net wrote: In 20090102224554.57ea4...@krikkit, Neil Bothwick n...@digimed.co.uk wrote: On Fri, 2 Jan 2009 09:09:23 -0600, ?Q? wrote: That's the point of this thread, the ebuild does perform a test before installation, but goes ahead straight after the warning. AFAIAC, the post-install log is exactly where the message belongs -- that's where I'd look if I'd broken my system. Would it be better if your system wasn't broken? Yes, but I continue not to believe that it should be portage's job to prevent me from installing things that break my system. You must be pretty unhappy with Gentoo, because portage seems to go to a great deal of effort to avoid breaking things (what with all that dependancy stuff it does). Several times a month it refuses to update because of blockages alone. -- Grant
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: nvidia warning comes a tad late
Grant Edwards wrote: On 2009-01-02, ?Q? boxc...@gmx.net wrote: In 20090102224554.57ea4...@krikkit, Neil Bothwick n...@digimed.co.uk wrote: On Fri, 2 Jan 2009 09:09:23 -0600, ?Q? wrote: That's the point of this thread, the ebuild does perform a test before installation, but goes ahead straight after the warning. AFAIAC, the post-install log is exactly where the message belongs -- that's where I'd look if I'd broken my system. Would it be better if your system wasn't broken? Yes, but I continue not to believe that it should be portage's job to prevent me from installing things that break my system. You must be pretty unhappy with Gentoo, because portage seems to go to a great deal of effort to avoid breaking things (what with all that dependancy stuff it does). Several times a month it refuses to update because of blockages alone. I bet with all the good work the devs do, this could be dealt with pretty easily. After all, they made portage so they can move mountains. LOL I do think that emerging a package that will knowingly break something is a bad idea. I still say that if this was baselayout or some critical package needed to boot, this would have to be dealt with quickly. I just don't think the devs would intentionally release a bad critical package that is known to break something. Dale :-) :-)
[gentoo-user] Re: nvidia warning comes a tad late
In 200901010423.25783.volker.armin.hemm...@tu-clausthal.de, Volker Armin Hemmann volker.armin.hemm...@tu-clausthal.de wrote: That is why you have to go to nvnews first and then upgrade. Where is nvnews? I've been going to http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html, selecting the driver I'm thinking of upgrading to, and checking its compatibility list. -- »Q« Kleeneness is next to Gödelness.
[gentoo-user] Re: nvidia warning comes a tad late
On 2009-01-01, Matt Causey matt.cau...@gmail.com wrote: I am total Gentoo newb :D but it seems kind of fundamental to the concept of this distribution that its users are going to make themselves aware of the details of system updates. Short of reading ridiculous amounts of doco...folks should be reading the output of the emerge commands to learn about edge cases like this one. There are plenty of ebuilds that when they know they are going to break the system will abort with a warning to the user how to either prevent the breakage or how to force the install. I don't see any reason why the nvidia ebuild should go ahead and break the system and then tell you about it afterwards. Why not tell you about how the update will break your system and then _not_ doing the update? Personally, I rather like this approach. The folks maintaining the builds take the time to identify these edge cases, which makes the portage text output quite helpful. It would be even more helpful if the ebuild _doesn't_ break your system. -- Grant
[gentoo-user] Re: nvidia warning comes a tad late
Michael P. Soulier wrote: [...] I see many posts like this but few suggestions as to how the problem could have been avoided ahead of time. You can open a bug about it and suggest something.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: nvidia warning comes a tad late
On 01/01/09 Nikos Chantziaras said: You can open a bug about it and suggest something. I did yesterday when it happened. Thanks, Mike -- Michael P. Soulier msoul...@digitaltorque.ca Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. --Albert Einstein pgp5pj6BuQRwo.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: nvidia warning comes a tad late
On Donnerstag 01 Januar 2009, »Q« wrote: In 200901010423.25783.volker.armin.hemm...@tu-clausthal.de, Volker Armin Hemmann volker.armin.hemm...@tu-clausthal.de wrote: That is why you have to go to nvnews first and then upgrade. Where is nvnews? http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?s=forumid=14
[gentoo-user] Re: nvidia warning comes a tad late
On Thu, 1 Jan 2009 13:28:55 -0500 Michael P. Soulier msoul...@digitaltorque.ca wrote: Your philosophy seems to put an undue amount of work on the administrator. I guess I'm in the camp that thinks the administrator should know what modules are needed for the hardware, and portage should keep working as it does now. ISTM the fundamental cause of the problem is with nVidia. Their different series of drivers support different hardware, but instead of distinguishing them by different package names, they only use version numbers. It looks like they now offer four different series, supporting four different hardware sets (with some overlap of the sets). IMO the best solution would be to regard the four series as four distinct software products and give them different names. So, e.g., if you had installed x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers173-173.14.14, emerge -u wouldn't install x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers177-177.82. And people like me, whose hardware would be supported by both packages, could just choose which one they wanted (without having to mask anything), which doesn't seem like too much of a burden. Or I guess slotting could work also, but probably create collision headaches for maintainers. -- »Q« Kleeneness is next to Gödelness.
Re: [gentoo-user] Re: nvidia warning comes a tad late
On Thu, 1 Jan 2009 14:14:16 -0600, »Q« wrote: I guess I'm in the camp that thinks the administrator should know what modules are needed for the hardware, and portage should keep working as it does now. Then why the test and warning? -- Neil Bothwick God is real, unless specifically declared integer. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
