Things I like to see in Gentoo

[mountainpenguin]

These are some of the things I would like to see in Gentoo but isn't. I would like to hear your opinions on these ideas.

1. parallel build - Instead of downloading source and building process in a single linear process, this can this be done in parallel to save time.

2. paralle start up - start up time can be shortened even further if it is done in parallel.

3. /usr/portage location change - Normally everything in /usr is fairly static and I usually use ext2 for this mount point. For some odd reason Gentoo puts it's most frequently changed files under /usr/portage. This really belongs in /var.

4. emerge search problems - This is just too slow. There is gotta be a ways to improve the speed on this. Also the output of search result is just too verbose.

5. build time estimation - It doesn't have to be accurate but there should be some indication of how much time a build will take.

6. space requirement info and estimation - Some information about how much disk space will be necessary for software build process as well as after the build might be useful. It's annoying to have build process fail somwhere towards the end because disk ran out of space.

7. calculated dependency info caching - Why is it that if I do emerge -u world -p it spends about 5 to 10 seconds calculating dependency and then apparently same calculation is done again and again. I'm sure there is a way to save this data somewhere so we don't have to calculate this thing every single time.

8. environment metadata in package - Perhaps package file should contain metadata about how the package was built. Information like which ebuilt was used, which gcc version, etc.

9. option to not install header file - emerge tends to install everything including header files. I wish there was a way to not install them.

10. dependency graphing app - It would be nice if a graphical app exists to view the package dependency visually.

[metwo]

Some/Many of these are already in Gentoo.

#1 - you mean like make -j3 ?
#2 - already possible - https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=131142&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=paralell+parallel+startup

#4 try www.gentoo-portage.com ??

[inode77]

[spb]

[georgz]

[castorilo]

[mountainpenguin]

First of all, thank you for taking time to respond to my initial post. Here are my reply to some of those responses.

1. parallel build

Ahh.. Someone is already working on such a thing. This is good.

2. paralle start up

This one is done. Good.

3. /usr/portage location change

Yes I'm aware that this can be changed my modifying make.conf however I think this should be default to /var during initial install. I just think it's very unconventional (or even wrong) to put this kind of files under /usr.

4. emerge search problems

esearch is nice but this is yet another external program that really should be part of emerge and works as it should be from emerge. Obviously doing eupdatedb process needs to be merged at the end of emerge sync routine.

5. build time estimation

Obviously build time depends on so many things like cpu speed, compiler version, hard drive speed, memory, etc. Accurate estimate is very difficult or even impossible however a general ballpark estimate would be helpful to users. Something like <1min or 5, 10, .. 30.

6. space requirement info and estimation

I'll split this into two.
6a - final installation footprint
6b - build time space requirement

I do believe both are quite possible and useful for the user. I do think they are useful in that 6a or 6b shouldn't even be attempted if disk space requirement is not met. There are ebuilds where build time disk space depends on external variables. One example is net-www/mozilla and moznoirc moznomail moznocompose USE flags. In cases like mozilla I would say it should report the largest build space requirement. This will require some data collection by the ebuild developers and have that information be part of the ebuild itself.

7. calculated dependency info caching

Well, there may be some cacheing being done but it's obviously not enough or not being done correctly. If you do emerge -u world -p and then issue the same command again, it still does "Calculating world dependencies \|/-" all over again.

8. environment metadata in package

Currently gentoo's binary package isn't really "package" like rpm files since it's more of a tarball. It's missing metadata about itself. I guess my notion of binary package is much more self contained file.

9. option to not install header file

I should have been more clear. For situations when you have a machine that uses built binary packages from another machine, header files are not necessary. They are just there for no purpose. It makes sense to have an option not install header files for those setup.

10. dependency graphing app

I suppose this is more useful tool for ebuild developers than end users.

[codergeek42]

[antonlacon]

genlop can be used to guesstimate package build time.

[Archangel1]

[Sven Vermeulen]