Bugzilla Bug 36133

minicom needs a x/y/zmodem program in order to accurately meet the purpose of
the program. lrzsz is (AFAIK) the only program that meets that need in portage.
minicom should have a dependency for lrzsz and then the default configuration
also should be setup in minicom to remove the "-vv" parameters from the modem
commandlines in order to make the modems functional. I think that is all that
is needed. Should be pretty easy. 

It would have saved me 1/2 day of headache if I'd realized it didn't come as
part of minicom. Minicom doesn't fail well, not giving any idea that the modem
progs aren't there. Hopefully I can save someone else the trouble. I was using
it to install Linux on my Jornada 567.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. emerge unmerge lrzsz
2. emerge minicom
3. try a ymodem transfer and watch nothing happen

Actual Results:  
There was no display of any type to indicate an error. I eventually tracked it
down to lrzsz missing.

Expected Results:  
transfer of file

Portage 2.0.49-r15 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.2.3, glibc-2.3.2-r3, 2.4.2003Nov10)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.4.2003Nov10 i686 AMD Duron(tm) processor
Gentoo Base System version 1.4.3.10p1
distcc 2.11.1 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632)
[disabled]
ccache version 2.3 [enabled]
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CFLAGS="-march=athlon -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
COMPILER="gcc3"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /var/qmail/control /usr/kde/2/share/config
/usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/3.1/share/config
/usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/
/usr/share/config"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon -O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="sandbox autoaddcvs ccache userpriv fixpackages usersandox"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.namerica.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="oss apm avi crypt encode foomaticdb libg++ mad mikmod mpeg ncurses nls
quicktime truetype xml2 xv zlib directfb gtkhtml gdbm berkdb slang readline
tetex bonobo tcltk guile ruby mysql sdl tcpd libwww ssl perl python esd imlib
qt
motif opengl snmp x86 X -gtk -gtk2 -gnome -alsa -arts kde 3dnow cdr cups evo
gif
gpm imap java jpeg ldap mmx mozilla oggvorbis pam pda pdflib png samba slp
spell
svga xmms xml video_cards_sis"

This is actually a duplicate of an old bug:

24 Apr 2003; Graham Forest <vladimir@gentoo.org> minicom-1.83.1-r1.eb$        
  minicom-2.00.0.ebuild:                                                        
  Added einfo for bug 9526

but I guess if you missed it, then maybe it should be a depend.  I missed it as well, 
because I only used it to configure and query the modem for hylafax setup (not for transfers).

What do you guys think?  Should lrzsz be a dependency?

It's probably a good idea.  Many people miss the post install messages
(especially if you emerge a bunch of stuffs at once).  The lrzsz is not a large
package, and it really doesn't affect many other packages.  While it may not
*technically* merit a dependency, it would probably save users a headache.

The second option is to patch the code of minicom to fail in a verbose way
("hey, you need the lrzsz package to do that!"), and this would inform the user
that he/she will need to install the package.  If there is any interest in this
second option, let me know and I'll start work on a patch.

This has been sitting awhile and should be a pretty simple fix

A simple change indeed. Just add
RDEPEND="net-misc/lrzsz"
in all minicom ebuilds.

added RDEPEND="${DEPEND} net-misc/lrzsz"

not added yet, alpha, hppa and mips need to test lrzsz first

Hppa stable.

alpha: need to set net-misc/lrzsz stable for your arch
mips: need at least ~mips in net-misc/lrzsz

It is important for minicom users since it isn't fun to upgrade a firmware that never ends. 
Please do your thing. 

Alpha fixed.

~mips'ed.

fixed in 2.1 and 2.1-r1