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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Questions about splitting kdebase into a plethora of packages
From:       Lokheed <lokheed () gmail ! com>
Date:       2005-02-10 21:17:44
Message-ID: 420BCF78.9090403 () gmail ! com
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I completely agree with you. Many of these issues are not addressed and 
should have been done first. I have seen this many times were users of 
Gentoo are not informed of changes or these blurbs are hidden among 
countless help files. Critical system changes go changed but the end 
user is most often not told about them. It becomes mind-boggling at 
times trying to track down information about a certain change (why? 
when? etc.)

I also agree that this will be brutal to maintain and my cries to 
support one ebuild (kdebase) get answered with the common: "Its just to 
much to maintain both." Which my natural thought is: "It's too hard to 
maintain one extra ebuild?"

I believe the Gentoo devs are acting in their, I stress "their", 
interests here. They have no listened to the concerns of the end user 
and are hell bent on breaking KDE up into more than 300 ebuilds...all of 
which are listed under kdebase I might add.

The biggest problem is the meta ebuilds. kde-meta will pull in every 
known package of kde (including the additional packages outside of 
kdebase). If a user does not want kkdemultimedia, or kdeutils, that will 
break the meta ebuild and the user is forced to enter every package one 
by one. Before this was solved by simply emerging kdebase but with the 
split, you will now need to decipher what packages that have been split 
from kdebase you will require, all the while entering them in manually, 
one by one.

Among other problems, users are directed towards rude replies when asked 
to submit requests to support the monolith kdebase in the future.

It has been handled very poorly and I thought I was mad for seeing 
faults (the one above being critical) in the split.

 From what I have read and the replies, it appears KDE does not have 
really any official stance but my main concern is the stability. I have 
yet to read about stability issues in splitting up kde like this. I was 
under the assumption that some components (kcontrol for example) where 
critical for kde to function, but I have not read anything to disprove 
or prove this.

Anyway thanks for the reply. I believe you understand the users dilemma 
because you support them. Most of these devs are thinking along the 
lines of programmers and we all know that the engineer has nothing in 
common with the end user.

Lokheed

Lauri Watts wrote:

>On Thursday 10 February 2005 12.59, Isaac Clerencia wrote:
>  
>
>>On Thursday, 10 de February de 2005 00:14, Lokheed wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>Here is a small fraction of the packges that are now available:
>>>...
>>>      
>>>
>>Just FYI we create these packages in Debian from kdebase:
>>libkonq4-dev, kicker, kcontrol, ksplash, klipper, kdebase-dev, kmenuedit,
>>kpersonalizer, kdebase, kdepasswd, kwin, kdebase-bin, kdeprint, kappfinder,
>>kdm, kdebase-data, konqueror, kfind, kdesktop, ksmserver,
>>kdebase-kio-plugins, ksysguard, kate, xfonts-konsole, konqueror-nsplugins,
>>kdebase-doc, khelpcenter, kpager, libkonq4, ktip, ksysguardd, konsole
>>    
>>
>
>And debian has historically generated far out of proportion numbers of support 
>issues about missing dependencies, or users not knowing what to install to 
>get a specific item on KDE IRC channels at least.  Oddly not really on the 
>mailing lists or newsgroups, I suppose people writing mail tend to direct 
>those to the debian lists.
>
>Immediately noticeable with the split ebuilds, the number of gentoo users 
>showing up with questions shot up sharply (and equally noticeable that some 
>became quite aggressive when directed to ask their questions re dependencies 
>to Gentoo forums.)  It should be made *VERY* clear upon install that 
>splitting of the packages is a gentoo decision, and the gentoo packagers are 
>responsible for supporting the issues it causes.
>
>I will further note that many of those package names are very odd 
>(kde-base/kenolaba? eh?) and will only serve to further confuse users (and 
>people providing support) about what comes from where, and depends on what.
>
>Personally I think it's unmaintainable insanity, and that's talking as a 
>packager for a broadly similar packaging system, as well as someone who 
>spends some time supporting users.
>
>Regards,
>  
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 
>  
>
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>>>      
>>>
 
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