Bugzilla Bug 217516

Today I did want update my system as usually. But I had to experience that
since yesterday the package app-admin/gnome-system-tools-2.14.0 is masked in
/usr/portage/profile/package.masks. The reason for that is, so far I that
understand, that there is a problem with Gnome 2.22. I use Gnome 2.20.3 and
there is no problem with that package. Therefore I think that masking is wrong.

I reported that in bug #214265 and was told to open a new bug. Here we are. To
see my comments please visit bug #214265.
Unmerge gnome-system-tools is out of question, because I use it and there is no
problem.

Thanks in advance.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.emerge --ask --update --deep --newuse --verbose world
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
Installed package are masked, although they shouldn't.

Expected Results:  
Correct masking.

Output from emerge --info:

Portage 2.1.4.4 (default-linux/x86/2007.0/desktop, gcc-4.1.2, glibc-2.6.1-r0,
2.6.24-gentoo-r4-wolf-v1 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.24-gentoo-r4-wolf-v1 i686 Genuine Intel(R) CPU T2130 @
1.86GHz
Timestamp of tree: Sun, 13 Apr 2008 10:00:04 +0000
ccache version 2.4 [enabled]
app-shells/bash:     3.2_p17-r1
dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.1.4
dev-lang/python:     2.4.4-r9
dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r6
dev-util/ccache:     2.4-r7
sys-apps/baselayout: 1.12.11.1
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.18.1-r2
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.61-r1
sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10.1
sys-devel/binutils:  2.18-r1
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.0-r4
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.26
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.23-r3
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-O2 -march=prescott -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf
/etc/gconf /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/splash /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/web2c
/etc/udev/rules.d"
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=prescott -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="ccache distlocks metadata-transfer parallel-fetch sandbox sfperms
strict unmerge-orphans userfetch"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://gentoo.tiscali.nl/pub/mirror/gentoo/"
LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress
--force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles
--exclude=/local --exclude=/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="X Xaw3d a52 aac aalib accessibility acl acpi adns alsa amrnb amrwb applet
artworkextra avahi bash-completion berkdb binfilter bittorrent bl branding
bzip2 cairo cardbus catalogs ccache cdaudio cdio cdparanoia cdr cjk cli
colordiff cpudetection cracklib crypt cscope cube cups dbus dell device-mapper
dga directfb disk-partition divx djvu dmi dri dts dv dvb dvd dvdr dvdread dvi
ecc enca encode esd evo exif extensions extrafilters fam fame fastcgi fbcon
fbcondecor fbsplash ffmpeg finger firefox flac fltk foomaticdb fortran freetts
ftp gd gdbm geoip ggi gif gimp gimpprint glib gnome gnomecanvas gopher gpac
gphoto2 gpm gsf gstreamer gtk gtkhtml hal hddtemp hpn html iconv id3tag idn
ieee1394 imagemagick imlib intl iris isdnlog java javascript jbig jpeg jpeg2k
jrtplib keyring l7filter ladspa lash lcms libcaca libgda libnotify
libsamplerate libsexy lirc lm_sensors logrotate lucene lzo mad madwifi md5sum
midi mikmod mime mjpeg mmap mmx mmxext mng modplug mono mozdevelop mozdom
mozilla mp2 mp3 mpeg mplayer mtp mudflap muine multiuser musepack nas nautilus
ncurses nemesi network network-cron nfs nids nls nntp nptl nptlonly nsplugin
ntfs odk ogg ole openal opengl openmp oss pam pcap pcmcia pcre pdf perl plugins
png pnm portaudio postproc ppds pppd pvr python quicktime radio rar rdesktop
readline reflection replytolist rtc ruby sasl scanner sdl sensord session
sharedmem shorten sid silc smp sndfile snmp sockets sound soundtouch sox speex
spell spl srt sse sse2 ssl startup-notification svg svga symlink syslog t1lib
tcpd tga theora threads threadsonly thunderbird tiff tivo toolbar truetype tta
twolame unicode usb v4l v4l2 vamp vcd vidix vim-pager vim-syntax vim-with-x
vorbis vorbis-psy wavpack wifi win32codecs wireshark withsamplescripts wma wmf
wmp x86 xanim xattr xcomposite xml xmlrpc xorg xpm xprint xv xvid xvmc yv12
zlib zoran" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci
emu10k1 emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0
intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci"
ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file
hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mulaw multi null plug rate route
share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias
authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default
authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs
dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter
headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation
rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias"
ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="evdev keyboard mouse synaptics" KERNEL="linux"
LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses
text" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="dummy fbdev i128 i740 i810 s3 v4l vesa vga
vmware"
Unset:  CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS,
LINGUAS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS,
PORTDIR_OVERLAY

(In reply to comment #0)
I figured the following out. If the mask in /usr/portage/profiles/package.masks
is:

 >app-admin/gnome-system-tools-2.14.0
 >app-admin/system-tools-backends-1.4.2-r1

Then the problem is gone.

The intention was to mask all gnome-system-tools versions, as >2.14 was already
masked earlier. Any explanations on the reasoning I'll leave to Gilles who is
familiar with the problems.

Created an attachment (id=149562) [details]
diff

That should fix the problem.

(In reply to comment #2)
So far I that understand, is the intention to mask the required version by
Gnome 2.22 not for Gnome 2.20. Because Gnome 2.20.3 is the stable version. Or
what is it what I'm missing?

Thanks.

Same here. My laptop is running stable gnome (2.20) and gnome-system-tools-2.14
have to be unmasked and added to the world file although they work fine.
you might want to add something like
!<app-admin/gnome-system-tools-2.22*
to the DEPEND part of the gnome-2.22 ebuild

Let's get this straight once and for all :

1) g-s-t 2.14 is _broken_ and _unmaintained_ by upstream. We don't want to fix
it, and we'd rather people didn't use those as they have serious issues.

2) gst 2.20 is masked because it may have some bugs and it could use more
testing.

The plan is to get 2.20 or newer out of p.mask once we feel it's ready. 2.14
will disappear because it just doesn't work.

Thanks for understanding

PS, Gilles, if I got this wrong, please correct me :p

(In reply to comment #6)
I'm sorry, I haven't any issues with g-s-t 2.14. What are the issues?

Thanks.

you sum up it well :)

I'll add the although g-s-t 2.14 might appear to work, it already had tweaks
and was still not working fully. With the arrival of gnome-2.22, it _will_
break once and for all (see bug #216019).

It is not that is it not fixable, nobody will do it and it is highly preferable
to make >=2.20 work as this is where upstream wants to go.

(In reply to comment #8)
I understand that for Gnome 2.22 g-s-t 2.14 is broken, but first Gnome 2.20
isn't masked and second if g-s-t 2.14 is broken for Gnome 2.22, and that is
obvious, why must g-s-t 2.14 masked for Gnome 2.20? Why you can't mask the way
I suggested?

I have to missing something, but I don't know what, perhaps someone can clarify
this?

Only for the record, I'm not a Linux newbie, I have about 15 years experience
with several distributions. Something like that I didn't experienced ever.

Thanks in advance.

One thing should be noted : p.masking a package in Gentoo can mean several
things.

In our case, we are currently masking gnome-system-tools because we, as
maintainers, feel that the quality of the Gentoo backend of system-tools is not
good enough. That doesn't mean you can't use it if you know what you're doing.

It just means that _for_now_, we don't want people to think that g-s-t is safe
to use. Some tools work, some don't, and some others we don't really know.

That's what the mask means in this case. Now please, let's stop the discussion
about the masking. If you want to help fix g-s-t, please search our bugzilla
for bugs that have been reported or just try the newer versions and report bugs
if you find any.

G-s-t _will_ stay masked until we, as maintainers, feel it's good enough for
our users.

Thanks for understanding