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List: gentoo-dev
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] The KDE overlay moves forward
From: "Wulf C. Krueger" <wk () mailstation ! de>
Date: 2009-10-21 19:56:02
Message-ID: 200910212156.06238.wk () mailstation ! de
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Hello!
> As you might know, the Gentoo KDE project provides an overlay with KDE4
> live ebuilds ("kde" in layman) and some of their dependencies.
It's been about 1,5 years ago when I announced the availability of the re-
designed KDE overlay which has since been our playground/testing ground for
new EAPI features.
Even though I'm not a Gentoo developer anymore I thought I'd let you know
about our experiences and do a little summary:
- "-scm" support (GLEP 54)
- new .kdebuild-1 suffix (basically GLEP 55)
These two have been very useful for us. Especially the clarity of -scm as the
version specification for live ebuilds in contrast to -9999, -9999999 or other
variations like those.
- USE dependencies, including some special operators
- :* and := slot dependencies
- src_uri arrows
- no dohtml, dohard and dosed.
- no old-style virtuals (i. e. no "PROVIDE")
I'm glad to see most of these features having been introduced with EAPIs 2/3.
They've made specifying deps way clearer and more concise for us in the KDE
overlay and improved the user experience as they allow more things to be
handled up front.
src_uri arrows have been useful in many cases; especially when upstream
archive names were, let's say, interesting. ;-)
- src_test is now mandatory (unless RESTRICT'ed)
I've never understood all the quarrelling about this feature. Upstream KDE is
notoriously neglecting the test suites and still, our users and ourselves
haven't suffered at all from making src_test mandatory with the kdebuild-1
EAPI. Which is not really surprising considering that we test our packages,
catch test failures and simply fix or restrict them. No harm done.
- PDEPEND "suggested:" label
The "suggested" label made it easier for our users to decide if they wanted to
install additional packages in order to enable certain optional functionality
which is, as we all know, abundant in KDE. With a descriptive label for each
suggested dependency, making the right decision becomes easy.
> For those of us working on the overlay this means we will be able to use
> exciting new features and hopefully make our lives easier.
This prediction turned out to be true. It has been a fun ride and it has given
Gentoo three new developers as well - one of which is even still among your
ranks. ;-)
> For Gentoo as a whole this means there's plenty of opportunity to try new
> stuff and learn from the experiences.
Judging by what went into the Gentoo EAPIs meanwhile, I think we helped Gentoo
make some progress as well. :-)
But, alas, times are changing and, as we've moved forward when we created the
overlay, we've been working on Exherbo in the meantime. All of the Gentoo KDE
overlays features were implemented in Exherbo's exheres-0 EAPI and extended,
building upon our experiences.
Yesterday, Ingmar whom some of you will certainly remember, committed -scm
exheres to Exherbo's KDE repository. This was the next logical "evolutionary"
;-) step and many of our users have already migrated to Exherbo or are about
to make the switch anyway. Others have migrated to the live ebuilds created by
the current Gentoo KDE team.
Thus, the Gentoo KDE overlay is now obsolete and all further development will
be continued in Exherbo. I'm going to shutdown the overlay and its resources
on October, 31st 2009.
Best regards, Wulf C. Krüger
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