dev-perl/libnet and net-libs/libnet are two different packages with the same name. seemant asked me to submit this bug for the next release of portage. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. cd /usr/portage 2. find -iname libnet Actual Results: displayed ./dev-perl/libnet ./net-libs/libnet Expected Results: ummm, only returned 1? Although having multiple packages with the same name is a problem with the short notation of `emerge package', I don't believe it should be a technical problem. A possible solution to this, rather than renaming packages(a hack) is to have emerge check for multiple packages that satisfy the name and, if it finds multiple, throw an error stating the options and have the user do `emerge type/package'. emerge info: Portage 2.0.47-r10 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.2.2, glibc-2.3.2-r1) ================================================================= System uname: 2.5.67 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) MP 1600+ GENTOO_MIRRORS=" ftp://ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/pub/gentoo http://ftp.belnet.be/mirror/rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo/ http://194.83.57.15/sites/www.ibiblio.org/gentoo/ http://csociety-ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/gentoo/ http://194.83.57.7/sites/www.ibiblio.org/gentoo/" 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/config" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" USE="x86 oss apm avi crypt encode libg++ mikmod mpeg pdflib quicktime spell svga xml2 xv zlib gtkhtml alsa gdbm berkdb slang readline aalib bonobo tcltk guile sdl gpm tcpd libwww ssl perl esd imlib oggvorbis mozilla apache2 gd 3dnow -divx -arts cdr cups gphoto2 gtk gtk2 java kde mmx ncurses pam qt samba sse truetype X xmms xfs nls jpeg png opengl motif gif tiff python gnome postgres" COMPILER="gcc3" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-march=athlon-mp -O2 -pipe" CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon-mp -O2 -pipe" ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86" MAKEOPTS="-j4" AUTOCLEAN="yes" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" FEATURES="sandbox ccache"
they are complete different packages
Yep. they're different. But if you do 'emerge libnet' portage doesn't know which one you want. Although this isn't technically a problem(you SHOULD have to specify which one you want) it's not in compliance with the general theme that portage seems to have been following. Pat (still presant in portage-2.0.48_pre6)
I think this bug's summary should be changed to this: "portage should complain about an ambiguous package reference" Since I think that this would better reflect what needs to change. Put more verbosely: If the user references an ambiguous package name (e.g. "emerge libnet"), portage should complain that the package is ambiguous and tell the user that they need to specify the one they want more explicitly, listing the available options (e.g. "dev-perl/libnet" or "net-libs/libnet" in the "emerge libnet" case).
All I can say is that I NEVER used that category/ebuild notation and as an ordinary user I'll be very pleased if that feature (no need to specify category) would remain in the future... I just think that 99% of the people (me including) are way too lazy to EVER write the category name... If there was a poll, I'd voted "rename one of the packages"... :-)
This has been resolved in portage with the original bug author's suggestion of how to handle it...
