What is the 'e' for as in "emerge", "ebuild&q

widremann · Veteran Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 1314

There's probably a document somewhere, but the idea of having to do some very creative googling to find it is just not that appealing. In the rest of the computer world it stands for "electronic", but that doesn't really make sense in terms of Gentoo. Any ideas?

Gherald · Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 6:06 pm Post subject:

electronic makes sense to me

as opposed to e.g. LFS for which you read instructions from a book and build things manually

maxima · Apprentice Joined: 01 Oct 2004 Posts: 150

you make me think
probably it's a gentoo logo which looks like mirrored 'e'

Ian · Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 9:13 pm Post subject:

Well, "emerge" is actually a word.

BlackEdder · Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 9:37 pm Post subject:

I'd guess that it started with emerge (like Ian said) and then ebuild == emerge build. Since then everything to do with emerge started with an e-> equery == emerge query.. etc

widremann · Veteran Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 1314

I assumed that "emerge" < "e-" + "merge", especially since it says "merging such-and-such to /" implying that the actual operation is merging, not emerging as in rising up.

BlackEdder, I like your explanation since it involves a kind of bootstrapping I see often in my linguistical travails.

Ian · Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 7:42 pm Post subject:

Well, look at the fourth definition, "To come into existence."

When I emerge <insert package name here> it "comes into existence" on my computer, because previously there had been an empty (and possibly lonely) void in which there was nothing there. Now there is something there.

Or I've just been reading a bit too much of Douglas Adams lately...

avenj · Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 10:49 pm Post subject:

'ebuild' actually came before 'emerge' -- the e comes from the fact that Daniel Robbins called Gentoo 'Enoch' before it was Gentoo

wjholden · l33t Joined: 01 Mar 2004 Posts: 826 Location: Augusta, GA

eNough already