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What is the definition of the -* keyword? Does it mean "for no
architecture?" How does it differ from a package that is masked? Can I
force compilation of such a package by putting it in the package.keywords
file? I copied one such ebuild to /usr/local/portage and changed the
KEYWORDS to ~x86 and added that name to my package.keywords file. Was that
unnecessary?

Thx for allowing my ignorance!

Peter wrote:
> What is the definition of the -* keyword? Does it mean "for no
> architecture?" How does it differ from a package that is masked? Can I
> force compilation of such a package by putting it in the package.keywords
> file? I copied one such ebuild to /usr/local/portage and changed the
> KEYWORDS to ~x86 and added that name to my package.keywords file. Was that
> unnecessary?
>
> Thx for allowing my ignorance!

Stolen from the Gentoo site:

<snip>
This variable now supports a couple of different functions. First of
all, this variable specifies what architecture the ebuild is meant for.
Some example keywords include: x86, ppc, sparc, mips, alpha, arm, hppa,
amd64 and ia64. See the profiles/arch.list file in the Portage tree for
more details. Obviously, you would set this to reflect the architecture
of the target machine. Portage will not allow an x86 machine to build
anything but x86, as specified by the KEYWORDS variable. Packages that
do no support the native architecture are automatically masked by
Portage. If the KEYWORDS flag has a preceding ~, then that indicates
that the particular ebuild works, but needs to be tested in several
environments before being moved to the stable profile with the given
keyword. If the KEYWORDS flag has a preceding -, then the package does
not work with the given keyword. If there is nothing leading KEYWORDS,
then the package is considered stable. You can allow installation of
these different types of packages through the ACCEPT_KEYWORDS variable
in make.conf.
</snip>

But the easiest way to compile a masked package is:

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge packagename (if the mask flag is ~x86, of
course.

Check the Gentoo site for docs and more info!

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 15:55:31 +0100, Wim Cossement wrote:
snip
> But the easiest way to compile a masked package is:
>
> ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge packagename (if the mask flag is ~x86, of
> course.
>
> Check the Gentoo site for docs and more info!

I did. ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="-*" does not work. See this:

root@mars peter # ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="-*" emerge -p e

These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

Calculating dependencies
!!! All ebuilds that could satisfy "e" have been masked.
!!! One of the following masked packages is required to complete your request:
- x11-wm/e-9999 (masked by: -* keyword)

For more information, see MASKED PACKAGES section in the emerge man page or
section 2.2 "Software Availability" in the Gentoo Handbook.

"Wim Cossement" <email@notset.be> schreef in bericht
news:ctqpj8$sjo$1@snic.vub.ac.be...
> Peter wrote:
>> What is the definition of the -* keyword? Does it mean "for no
>> architecture?" How does it differ from a package that is masked? Can I
>> force compilation of such a package by putting it in the package.keywords
>> file? I copied one such ebuild to /usr/local/portage and changed the
>> KEYWORDS to ~x86 and added that name to my package.keywords file. Was
>> that
>> unnecessary?
>>
>> Thx for allowing my ignorance!
>
> Stolen from the Gentoo site:
>
> <snip>
> This variable now supports a couple of different functions. First of all,
> this variable specifies what architecture the ebuild is meant for. Some
> example keywords include: x86, ppc, sparc, mips, alpha, arm, hppa, amd64
> and ia64. See the profiles/arch.list file in the Portage tree for more
> details. Obviously, you would set this to reflect the architecture of the
> target machine. Portage will not allow an x86 machine to build anything
> but x86, as specified by the KEYWORDS variable. Packages that do no
> support the native architecture are automatically masked by Portage. If
> the KEYWORDS flag has a preceding ~, then that indicates that the
> particular ebuild works, but needs to be tested in several environments
> before being moved to the stable profile with the given keyword. If the
> KEYWORDS flag has a preceding -, then the package does not work with the
> given keyword. If there is nothing leading KEYWORDS, then the package is
> considered stable. You can allow installation of these different types of
> packages through the ACCEPT_KEYWORDS variable in make.conf.
> </snip>
>
> But the easiest way to compile a masked package is:
>
> ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge packagename (if the mask flag is ~x86, of
> course.

I thought the problem with your suggestion is that also the packages on
which packagename depends are emerged with ~x86 and that may not be what you
want. I was told always to "accept keywords" via the package.keywords file

Wim Cossement enlightened us with:
> But the easiest way to compile a masked package is:
>
> ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge packagename

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! DON'T use ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" for it'll
emerge dependencies with ~x86 which may not be wanted.

Here are two reasons why "emerge -U" is drop dead ugly (bookmarking
this now so in the future I can link to it rather then writing it
again and again Wink )

Reason 1: Problems with SLOTs

This occured to quite a few people that wanted gimp-2 instead of
gimp-1.2. Imagine gimp-1.2 marked stable and in SLOT 1, gimp-2 marked
unstable and in SLOT 2. Now you do an "ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=~x86" emerge
gimp" and get gimp-2.

Later on you consider it's time to update your system with anything
similar to "emerge -U world". This will install gimp-1.2, because gimp
is in the worldfile, and "-U" doesn't handle the SLOTs here as one
might expect it.

Reason 2: Problems if ebuilds are removed from Portage tree

Imagine there are two versions of package foo in portage, foo-1.4
marked stable and foo-1.6 marked unstable. You want unstable and
emerge it like gimp above. Some time later you update world like
above, but in the meantime foo-1.6.1 came out fixing an important
security hole in foo-1.6. Now there are two possibilities:
a) foo-1.6 got removed from Portage. This results in foo-1.4 getting
installed, thus a downgrade instead of "-U"
b) even worse when foo-1.6 wasn't removed from Portage due to whatever
reason: foo-1.6 (the one with the security hole) would stay on
your system until something greater than foo-1.6 gets marked
stable.

For more info, see http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=167323

Sybren
--
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a
capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the
safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 16:39:33 +0100, Sybren Stuvel wrote:

> Wim Cossement enlightened us with:
>> But the easiest way to compile a masked package is:
>>
>> ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge packagename
>
> NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! DON'T use ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" for it'll emerge
> dependencies with ~x86 which may not be wanted.
>
I agree. However, back to the point, how do I properly use the -* keyword
to emerge packages.

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 10:45:33 -0500, Peter wrote:

> On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 16:39:33 +0100, Sybren Stuvel wrote:
>
>> Wim Cossement enlightened us with:
>>> But the easiest way to compile a masked package is:
>>>
>>> ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge packagename
>>
>> NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! DON'T use ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" for it'll
>> emerge dependencies with ~x86 which may not be wanted.
>>
> I agree. However, back to the point, how do I properly use the -* keyword
> to emerge packages.

The way I did it was to move the ebuild to /usr/local/portage... and
change the keyword to ~x86 (for me) and then to add it to
package.keywords. Was there a better way? What's the meaning of -* (don't
touch at all?)

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 10:57:16 -0500, Peter wrote:


I just tried adding x11-wm/e -* to the package.keywords file and emerge
would accept it. Is this what I need to do anytime I want a cvs or
unstable version of software? Add it to package.keywords? Why did the
unmask file work for this? My keywords file is getting long - over 20
entries already. Is there a better, smarter way?

Peter enlightened us with:
> I just tried adding x11-wm/e -* to the package.keywords file and
> emerge would accept it. Is this what I need to do anytime I want a
> cvs or unstable version of software? Add it to package.keywords?

Yes.

> Why did the unmask file work for this?

Did or didn't?

> My keywords file is getting long - over 20 entries already. Is there
> a better, smarter way?

Nope, this is the way.

Sybren
--
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a
capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the
safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 18:47:51 +0100, Sybren Stuvel wrote:

> Peter enlightened us with:
>> I just tried adding x11-wm/e -* to the package.keywords file and emerge
>> would accept it. Is this what I need to do anytime I want a cvs or
>> unstable version of software? Add it to package.keywords?
>
> Yes.
>
>> Why did the unmask file work for this?
>
> Did or didn't?
>
Lazy fingers make stupid mistakes. package.unmask did NOT make the file
available.

>> My keywords file is getting long - over 20 entries already. Is there a
>> better, smarter way?
>
> Nope, this is the way.
>
> Sybren

Thanks so much for the clarification.