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Bug 127033 - gnome upgrade guide should specify -DuN in the emerge command
Summary: gnome upgrade guide should specify -DuN in the emerge command
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Documentation
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Project-specific documentation (show other bugs)
Hardware: All Linux
: High enhancement (vote)
Assignee: Gentoo Linux Gnome Desktop Team
URL: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop...
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2006-03-20 19:51 UTC by Paul Bredbury
Modified: 2007-01-23 19:49 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
Package list:
Runtime testing required: ---


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Description Paul Bredbury 2006-03-20 19:51:02 UTC
Hi,

I notice that upgrade guides for multiple-package upgrades such as Gnome and modular X, do not mention using the -D/--deep option with the emerge command. This, I think, has been the cause of many failed compilations. A good example is the forum page below, in which the compilation of libXxf86misc fails because Portage ignores the dependency on libX11, which is one level further down, since -D was not specified.

Proposed solution: Replace all non-trivial occurences of "emerge" (i.e. other than when the ebuilds have simple and shallow dependencies) in the documentation with "emerge -D" :)

References:
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/gnome/howtos/gnome-2.12-upgrade.xml
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/x/x11/modular-x-howto.xml
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-439969-start-50.html
Comment 1 nm (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-03-21 13:46:45 UTC
Wrong component. Please use "Doc other" for documents not found in /doc/ on gentoo.org; the guides in question are maintained by their individual projects.
Comment 2 nm (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-05-28 07:50:31 UTC
CCing the respective authors of the documents so they can provide feedback, etc.
Comment 3 Donnie Berkholz (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-05-28 13:51:28 UTC
It's been my impression that --deep was being added to the default emerge options so that all emerges would be done with it.
Comment 4 John N. Laliberte (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-05-30 05:47:24 UTC
although i'd like to say to always use -D, sometimes with gnome it causes upgrade / downgrade cycles.

( although i can't think of any packages with the issue right now )
Comment 5 Paul Bredbury 2006-05-30 06:01:01 UTC
I've just had an upgrade/downgrade conflict with poppler. It's fixed by setting up the package.* files to remove the ambiguity.

I'd love to see the "deep" emerge option become the default, with a new "nodeep" option to use the old behaviour :)
Comment 6 Paul Bredbury 2006-06-02 05:35:41 UTC
Please update the documentation to include the -D option. My bug #135261 has been rejected.
Comment 7 Carsten Lohrke (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-06-02 06:07:34 UTC
(In reply to comment #4)
> although i'd like to say to always use -D, sometimes with gnome it causes
> upgrade / downgrade cycles.

When this happens with stable packages, it's a bug. In testing it's up to the user to take care.
Comment 8 nm (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-06-02 09:18:44 UTC
(In reply to comment #6)
>My bug #135261 has been rejected.

This is irrelevant to this particular bug.

> Please update the documentation to include the -D option.

Again, that's up to the individual authors of the docs.

(In reply to comment #6)
Until Portage-2.1 is marked stable (since that's the version that might make 0D default), it might be a good idea to change it to -D for the mod x guide.

(In reply to comment #4)
It's your call. Ping me on IRC if you'd rather have someone else modify your doc. :)
Comment 9 Paul Bredbury 2006-06-02 09:37:30 UTC
Sorry, correction: The command should be e.g. "emerge -DuN gnome" - "deep" seems to be useless without "update", and "newuse" should be brought to the attention of newbies struggling with the expert-mode parameters of emerge, otherwise they may think they've done a "proper" upgrade when in fact changed USE-flag functionality will not have been compiled-in.
Comment 10 Xavier Neys (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-06-12 04:51:04 UTC
Not a docs-team bug.
Can't assign to both John & Donnie. John, you won the toss :)
Comment 11 Paul Bredbury 2006-06-19 03:53:54 UTC
Another example, if anyone's unconvinced:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=3390573#3390573
Comment 12 Carsten Lohrke (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-08-09 09:01:29 UTC
(In reply to comment #0)
> I notice that upgrade guides for multiple-package upgrades such as Gnome and
> modular X, do not mention using the -D/--deep option with the emerge command.
> This, I think, has been the cause of many failed compilations. A good example
> is the forum page below, in which the compilation of libXxf86misc fails because
> Portage ignores the dependency on libX11, which is one level further down,
> since -D was not specified.

No. --deep should never be necessary. If some ebuild fails, because of some wrong minimum version listed as dependency, the ebuild is broken and you should file a bug for that.
Comment 13 Paul Bredbury 2006-08-09 12:39:06 UTC
(In reply to comment #12)
> No. --deep should never be necessary. If some ebuild fails, because of some
> wrong minimum version listed as dependency, the ebuild is broken and you should
> file a bug for that.

Absolute garbage. Kindly engage your brain.
Comment 14 Carsten Lohrke (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-08-09 17:30:05 UTC
(In reply to comment #13)
> Absolute garbage. Kindly engage your brain.

It's not. Otherwise the --deep option wouldn't exist and --update would do that what --update --deep does. Please apply your barefaced comment to yourself.

Comment 15 Paul Bredbury 2006-08-09 18:19:14 UTC
Nonsense.

> No. --deep should never be necessary.

Well, it is. Welcome to reality. Because ebuilds don't specify every single package as a dependency. They assume that the dependencies one level deep will be automatically satisfied. Which is correct behaviour. It it "emerge gnome", rather than "emerge -DuNe gnome", which is broken.
Comment 16 Carsten Lohrke (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-08-10 04:35:37 UTC
(In reply to comment #15)
> Because ebuilds don't specify every single package as a dependency.

If they don't, they're broken and you should file a bug. That simple. The whole point of the distinction between --update and --deep --update is to distinct between updating to what is necessary and to latest stable. Please grasp that.
Comment 17 Paul Bredbury 2006-08-10 06:29:20 UTC
(In reply to comment #16)
> If they don't, they're broken and you should file a bug.

I'm referring to dependencies which are *more* than 1 level deep. Such dependencies are not checked without --deep. Which requires --update.

Yes, --deep may do more than some users want. That's a deficiency in Portage, rather than the ebuilds. So, given the emerge choices which are available, surely it's better to err on the side of *caution*, rather than run the risk of "emerge gnome" failing halfway-through (and thus leaving Gnome in an unuseable state) because Portage hasn't checked all the relevant dependencies.

Compilation errors are a *bug*, yes? "-DuN" will prevent such bugs. "emerge gnome" simply does not check enough package dependencies, without those additional command-line options.
Comment 18 Carsten Lohrke (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-08-13 18:27:06 UTC
(In reply to comment #17)
> I'm referring to dependencies which are *more* than 1 level deep. Such
> dependencies are not checked without --deep. Which requires --update.

O.k., let's construct an example:

foo depends on bar and baz, but only bar is listed as dependency, since bar depends itself on baz. Know we have a new version foo that needs a different minimal dependency of baz than bar does. If the compilation fails for that reason, its the maintainer's fault, since he should have added e.g. >=baz-x.y as dependency to the new bar ebuild.


> Compilation errors are a *bug*, yes? "-DuN" will prevent such bugs.

The first yes, the second is a workaround, but doesn't fix the real problem. If the compilation fails on a plain emerge --update, because of dependency issues, it's either a bug in the ebuild or something Portage can't deal with yet (e.g. cyclic dependencies). The latter case -DuN can't fix either, for the former one it is a workaround, but the invalid depend atoms remain, which is a bigger problem. And there are a lot of ebuilds with insufficient dependencies in the tree.
Comment 19 Paul Bredbury 2006-08-13 19:24:24 UTC
(In reply to comment #18)
That's an interesting dependency situation, and I agree that in that situation, the versioned dependency on the 3rd-level package should be specified in the 1st-level package's ebuild, because it's not satisfied by the 2nd-level package's dependencies.

However, this does not mean that all ebuilds should start explicitly versioning every package in their entire dependency trees, because that would be overkill.

This current bug is not concerned with Portage's handling of circular dependencies (sounds like an impossible problem anyway), or Portage's strong desire for the current version (caused by --update) which can end up being a convenient workaround for subtle versioning bugs in ebuilds.

This bug is concerned with whether official (I updated the *unofficial* wiki entries months ago) Gentoo documentation should give users the *best* advice when upgrading e.g. Gnome, where "--deep" makes a big difference to the dependencies that Portage actually considers (rather than ignoring).

Having potentially bad multi-layered dependencies in ebuilds is a reason *for* advocating -DuN, especially when bugs on bugzilla can be closed if the user is not using the *current* version of a package.

Also, another relevant issue of dependencies is that we *cannot* assume that the installation is entirely up-to-date and clean, i.e. that "emerge -DuN world" does nothing.  In the situation where some of the 3rd layer (or lower) packages are not sufficient for the Gnome version being emerged, they will *not* be checked without "--deep", which is a bug. This bug can be solved with either "-DuN" (as I keep recommending) or by adding all of the packages from "emerge -pe gnome" to the gnome ebuild (and all the other "major" emerges such as other desktop environments).

Major emerges such as Gnome will be the most annoying places to come across ebuild dependency bugs, because no-one is going to watch the compilations whizz by for hours on end, waiting for one or more failures to have to rectify before the user can start the GUI again. They will be left overnight to run. So the emphasis should be on a *reliable* emerge, hence "-DuN".
Comment 20 Carsten Lohrke (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-10-07 08:38:27 UTC
(In reply to comment #19)
> Having potentially bad multi-layered dependencies in ebuilds is a reason *for*
> advocating -DuN, especially when bugs on bugzilla can be closed if the user is
> not using the *current* version of a package.

No. It's a reason to actually get the ebuilds fixed. You're trying to cure the symptom and propose to hide bugs.
 
> Also, another relevant issue of dependencies is that we *cannot* assume that
> the installation is entirely up-to-date and clean, i.e. that "emerge -DuN
> world" does nothing. In the situation where some of the 3rd layer (or lower)
> packages are not sufficient for the Gnome version being emerged, they will
> *not* be checked without "--deep", which is a bug.

Of course no developer can't expect that. That's why he has to make sure the dependencies within ebuilds are exact. The bug would be that the Gnome packages do not specify the needed dependencies in such a case. And caring for exact, deterministic dependencies is crucial, because otherwise we'll never see proper reverse dependency support, based on the ebuild information.

> This bug can be solved with
> either "-DuN" (as I keep recommending) or by adding all of the packages from
> "emerge -pe gnome" to the gnome ebuild (and all the other "major" emerges such
> as other desktop environments).

No. The bug wouldn't be solved, as the relevant ebuilds won't be fixed.

> Major emerges such as Gnome will be the most annoying places to come across
> ebuild dependency bugs, because no-one is going to watch the compilations whizz
> by for hours on end, waiting for one or more failures to have to rectify before
> the user can start the GUI again. They will be left overnight to run. So the
> emphasis should be on a *reliable* emerge, hence "-DuN".

Sorry, that's crap. Please file a bug, when a simple emerge -u doesn't work, because  of incorrect dependencies.
Comment 21 Carsten Lohrke (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-10-07 08:39:07 UTC
s/developer can't/developer can
Comment 22 Paul Bredbury 2006-10-09 05:29:21 UTC
Here's a simple script to run, to prove my point:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-3633731.html#3633731

It shows that the problem is solved by giving Portage the command-line options for it to check all deps and do its job properly.
Comment 23 Jakub Moc (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2007-01-11 22:00:38 UTC
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/gnome/howtos/gnome-2.12-upgrade.xml is fixed (Code Listing 4.2), don't see how the modular X thing is relevant here, so closing this bug. 
Comment 24 Paul Bredbury 2007-01-11 23:33:39 UTC
This bug is not fixed, because the wrong code listing has been changed. The code listing that should be changed is the code listing that *emerges* gnome (which is precisely where it's most likely to fail), which is code listing 2.1 ("emerge -av gnome") at:

http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/gnome/howtos/gnome-2.12-upgrade.xml
Comment 25 Daniel Gryniewicz (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2007-01-23 19:49:48 UTC
I'm sorry, but I completely fail to see why I should fix the upgrade guide for a verison of gnome not even in the tree anymore.