From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <26f3b3b7fc6f7e8e8d90094305925bdd@kw.quanstro.net> References: <6aaf2d79af665bf1905db13e44e194e5@quanstro.net> <3c68655ad1dadf393d44b4a945abbd7a@swcp.com> <26f3b3b7fc6f7e8e8d90094305925bdd@kw.quanstro.net> From: Jorden M Date: Sun, 16 May 2010 11:42:58 -0400 Message-ID: To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Subject: Re: [9fans] nupas update Topicbox-Message-UUID: 24ac0e38-ead6-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 10:03 AM, erik quanstrom wr= ote: > portage is horrid. =A0i hate it more every time i use it. > and it doesn't work. =A0revdep rebuild is proof. > > it's not clear to me that this is gentoo's fault. =A0linux and > gnu together are one heck of a difficult place for > a distribution to live. =A0but replicating portage would seem > to me to be a big mistake. =A0not 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'