Gentoo Package Management ( was Re: [TriLUG] Linux on Macs )

[Ed Warnicke]

What element of "real" package management do you not find with 
gentoo?  I'm only asking because I've recently made the switch, and made
similar complaints, but have found that MOST of the things I want in
package management really are there, I just hadn't stumbled across them
yet.  

As best as I've discovered so far emerge uses ebuild to build and
install the package in a sandbox ( no effect on your system ), determine
what files are were in the sandbox, and then "merge" them into your
system.  It evidently tracks which files are a part of which packages,
what their mtimes and md5 sums are ( so you can verify ), can remove
packages cleanly, protects configuration files in a systematic way, etc.
So it's really doing most of the "package management things" that I'm 
used to already ( admittedly sometimes is slightly modified forms).

Have you run across qpkg yet?  

emerge qpkg

qpkg let's you make queries about packages ( which package did this file
come from, what is the meta info on a given package, verify this
package, etc ).

Again, let me know what elements of package management are still missing
from your point of view.  I'm genuinely curious.

Ed

On Sun, 2002-07-07 at 11:14, Benjamin Reed wrote:
> BTW, I'm installing Gentoo on my laptop just for kicks right now, I've gotten
> to the point where I could build openssh and get out into the real world while
> more stuff builds.  ;)
> 
> So far I'm pretty impressed with gentoo...  When I did it on linux I kicked
> everything off and walked away.  This time I've been watching it more closely
> and they're doing some pretty neat stuff.  I'm half-tempted to combine gentoo
> and fink (a unix "distribution" for macosx) and make a fink linux distro.  =)
> The main thing that bugs me about gentoo is it's lack of real package
> management once something's installed.
> 
> -- 
> Benjamin Reed a.k.a. Ranger Rick (ranger at befunk.com) http://ranger.befunk.com/
> You will feel tremendous pain at the area where foreign materials are
> inserted.  I usually don't recommend anyone to insert artificial materials.
> Keep everything natural is best! -- Alex Chiu, Immortality Inventor
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