Bug 656716

Summary:	sys-apps/portage: documentation should discourage use of collision-protect (use protect-owned instead)
Product:	Portage Development	Reporter:	Zac Medico <zmedico>
Component:	Documentation	Assignee:	Portage team <dev-portage>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---
Severity:	normal	CC:	1i5t5.duncan
Priority:	Normal
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	All
OS:	All
See Also:	https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=656702 https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=883561
Whiteboard:
Package list:		Runtime testing required:	---

Description Zac Medico gentoo-dev

2018-05-27 20:51:28 UTC

Since collision-protect makes harmless collisions fatal, the documentation should strongly discourage using it. The protect-owned feature is much more friendly, which is why protect-owned is enabled by default.

Comment 1 Duncan 2023-12-31 08:33:47 UTC

In fact, the current (portage-3.0.59) make.conf manpage says:

> collision-protect
> 
>> A QA-feature to ensure that a package doesn’t overwrite files it doesn’t own.
>> The COLLISION_IGNORE variable can be used to selectively disable this feature.
>> Also see the related protect-owned feature.

Nothing about recommended-or-not there.  But see protect-owned as suggested:

> protect-owned
> 
>> [...]
>> It is recommended to leave either protect-owned or collision-protect enabled
>> at all times, since otherwise file  collisions  between packages may result
>> in files being overwritten or uninstalled at inappropriate times.
>> If collision-protect is enabled then it takes precedence over protect-owned.

My read of that suggests AT LEAST ONE of the two is recommended, PREFERABLY BOTH, such that collision-protect can better protect the system as a whole under normal circumstances, but can be safely disabled when necessary for individual packages (as in the previously mentioned bug #883561) while still leaving at least some protection in-place during that exception due to protect-owned still being enabled.

And that's what I've had in place probably since protect-owned was introduced...

So if collision-protect really is negative-recommended now, the above manpage wording implying the opposite /really/ should be changed. =8^O

(Never-the-less, the un-recommend is unlikely to change my config choice, but like my -preserve-libs, -* @system and reverse-usrmerge to / instead of /usr, at least now I know my collision-protect doesn't follow current normal recommendations and that I should be prepared to deal with any repercussions of that now deliberate choice as they appear.)