On Wednesday 25 March 2009 12:38:53 David wrote: > I wrote an entry in my blog about gentoo, and created a little script to > make gentoo handling a bit easier, and whant to share it will all gentoo > users to see if it could help them to understand gentoo better (specially > for noob ones), and simplify its handling. > > I think it is not spam, since it could help others (I hope so). > > The link: http://stormbyte.blogspot.com/2009/03/gentoo-easy-handling.html > > David.
It's far too simplistic. It doesn't take account of dependencies that must also be masked/unmasked/whatever and will cause obscure error messages that will confuse the user more than simply using portage. A noob user will realistically expect that if he gives "kde" as a parameter to your script, then all of kde will immediately be installable. This will actually not happen though, he will have to read up on dependencies and more, and unmask those too. By which time he is in a position to not need your script anymore. So, as a teaching aid to get people to understand why they must use portage as designed, it works well. As a script for actual use, it falls short. You also don't account for the case of /etc/portage/package.mask/<file_name> To fix that the user will have to read man 5 portage or read the Gentoo docs, in which case your script again becomes redundant. -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
