Hello, this bug seems to be relevant to all eix versions in tree: $ eix-test-obsolete detail complains about: Not installed but in /etc/portage/package.mask: [N] dev-java/icedtea-bin (--): A Gentoo-made binary build of the IcedTea JDK [N] dev-lang/mono (--): Mono runtime and class libraries, a C# compiler/interpreter ...and so on. That's quite obvious that user-masked packages are not installed. A logic of this test should be inverted: eix should complain about installed masked packages.
(In reply to comment #0) > this bug seems to be relevant to all eix versions in tree: > $ eix-test-obsolete detail > complains about: > > Not installed but in /etc/portage/package.mask: > [N] dev-java/icedtea-bin (--): A Gentoo-made binary build of the IcedTea JDK > [N] dev-lang/mono (--): Mono runtime and class libraries, a C# > compiler/interpreter And it rightfully complains about this. > That's quite obvious that user-masked packages are not installed. package.mask is for masking certain versions of installed packages / packages to be installed. If you do not want to install this package at all, although it is being pulled in as a dependency, you should use package.provided. Otherwise you break the dependency calculations made by portage. > A logic of > this test should be inverted: eix should complain about installed masked > packages. eix-test-obsolete should *additionally* complain about installed masked packages, if it does not do so yet. Well, that's how I see things, at least.
(In reply to comment #1) > > That's quite obvious that user-masked packages are not installed. > > package.mask is for masking certain versions of installed packages / > packages to be installed. > If you do not want to install this package at all, although it is being > pulled in as a dependency, you should use package.provided. Otherwise you > break the dependency calculations made by portage. Sorry, I can't agree with your meaning, man 5 portage clearly says: package.mask A list of package atoms to mask. Useful if specific versions of pack‐ ages do not work well for you. For example, you swear by the Nvidia drivers, but only versions earlier than 1.0.4496. No problem! package.provided A list of packages (one per line) that portage should assume have been provided. Useful for porting to non-Linux systems. Basically, it's a list that replaces the emerge --inject syntax. For example, if you manage your own copy of a 2.6 kernel, then you can tell portage that 'sys-kernel/development-sources-2.6.7' is already taken care of and it should get off your back about it. Portage will not attempt to update a package that is listed here unless another package explicitly requires a version that is newer than what has been listed. Dependencies that are satisfied by pack‐ age.provided entries may cause installed packages satisfying equiva‐ lent dependencies to be removed by emerge(1) --depclean actions (see the ACTIONS section of the emerge(1) man page for more information). In short, if you add a package to package.provided, you claim to portage that you have this package installed, but you will maintain it yourself. Portage will not update this package, but will assume that it has been installed during dependency calculations. package.mask exist exactly to mask packages you do not need to see on your system. This may be some version range of the package or the whole package name. It works exactly the same as system-wide masks with an exception to be user-controlled and not automatically updated.
eix-test-obsolete warns by default about a lot of things one may argue whether it should warn about. The philosophy is that if *some* users *might* want to see the warning, it is switched on. Here, the reason is the following: There might be a need to package.mask versions of a full package for a longer period, because every time you update a package, portage has to know this mask. On the other hand, there is not really a need to package.mask an uninstalled package for a longer period: It serves more or less only a reminder in case you install something new (or when dependencies change): Only the user can know whether this reminder should remain there intentionally or whether it was forgotten after installing something new where you wanted to pull in alternative dependencies. So the user is informed about it. If you want to tell eix that you do not want to see the warnings about particular packages put into /etc/portage/package.nowarn (or into a file in this directory) something like category/package in_mask (you can also use things like kde-base/* here). If you want to change the default for this warning globally, set REDUNDANT_IF_IN_MASK=false in /etc/eixrc (or in ~/.eixrc or in your environment). Due to the philosophy to inform the user if in doubt, I will not change the default in eix. > eix-test-obsolete should *additionally* complain about installed masked > packages You see these already with eix -u or during emerge. The purpose of eix-test-obsolete is - as the name says - to inform about *obsolete* entries in /etc/portage/package.*, i.e. entries which presumably do not have any effect.
