Package manager - interacting with the compiler

[Chad J]

On 12/13/2011 08:45 AM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
> On 2011-12-13 14:04, Chad J wrote:
>>
>> OK, cool.  I should probably mention some of the things I like about
>> portage (off the top of my head), incase it helps:
>>
>> - The world file: A list of all packages that the /user/ elected to
>> install.  It does not contain dependencies.  It is the top level.
> 
> That might be a good idea. I had only planned to list all installed
> packages.
> 
>> - use-flags: Flags/keywords associated with packages that allow you to
>> turn specific features within packages on and off.
> 
> I currently have no plans of configurable packages. Either the complete
> package is installed or nothing is installed.
> 

Would you allow others to implement this, or somehow be open to it in
the future?

Of course, I can definitely understand not wanting to handle this right
now, due to scope creep.

>> - Stability levels: Portage has a notion of unstable/untested or
>> "hardmasked" packages at one level, slightly unstable or
>> architecture-specific glitchiness at another level ("keyworded"), and
>> completely stable at another.
> 
> Orbit uses Semantic Versioning: http://semver.org/
> 

I'll read that when I get a bit of time.

>> Things I don't like about portage:
>> - The portage tree doesn't keep enough old versions around sometimes.
> 
> I have no plans of removing old packages as long as it doesn't cause any
> problems.
> 

Nice.  Thanks.

>> - People who write crappy ebuilds or mark things stable when they mess
>> up my system.  The quality control used to be better.
>> (It's still my favorite package manager by a wide margin.)
> 
> This seems hard to avoid and I don't know what can be done about it.
> 

Maintainers being more conservative, I suspect.

It's not too bad in Portage, and mostly happens on super large projects
with many packages, like KDE.  The bread-and-butter linux stuff (kernel,
compilers, small apps, drivers, etc) all tends to work out fine.  It can
also be mitigated a lot by having older versions around.  I can easily
avoid this by reverting to an earlier version of my system... except I
can't sometimes.  In a production environment I would probably keep all
versions of my stuff packaged locally.