Re: [9fans] nupas update

[Jorden M <jrm8005@gmail.com>]

On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 10:03 AM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> portage is horrid.  i hate it more every time i use it.
> and it doesn't work.  revdep rebuild is proof.
>
> it's not clear to me that this is gentoo's fault.  linux and
> gnu together are one heck of a difficult place for
> a distribution to live.  but replicating portage would seem
> to me to be a big mistake.  not only does the plan 9
> community lack the resources to maintain 30 different
> versions of /bin/cp (or whatever), much less portage redux,
> it will encourage gnu/linux habits, because that's what it's
> built for.
>
> we should build something that encourages a simplier
> system, a system plan 9 people would really want.
>
> - erik
>
>

I think some of the ideas behind portage are good, e.g. the ability to
handle patches and slim down software via USE flags.

That said, Portage is horrible to use, either as someone who just
wants to use a package mangler or someone who wants to mangle their
software into packages. I think it's probably 60% GNU/GTK/Qt/Shared
Libraries'/etc. fault, and 40% Portage being wacky.

Portage would have worked better had it targeted Plan 9. So would a
lot of things, but we all know the story. That said, Ron's work sounds
pretty interesting -- I wonder if he'd consider supporting something
like USE-flags or easy patch application, as there are some
patches/new versions on sources that would be nice to aggregate and
install easily on top of an existing `package'