Plasma hangs, could not log in

Wed Jul 20 20:35:47 BST 2011

Anne Wilson posted on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 19:03:28 +0100 as excerpted:

> Before reading this I was under the impression that only Arch had put
> KMail2 into the main repos - but even then someone said it was tagged as
> not being mainstream - sorry, I can't remember what they call it.
> Certainly most distros have KMail2 firmly in the unstable repos, for
> testers only.

It may be that you are thinking of gentoo, not arch, because I had posted 
that about Gentoo.  But our testing is called ~arch, in the generic, altho 
for actual users it's ~alpha ~amd64 ~arm ~hppa ~ia64 ~m68k ~mips ~ppc 
~ppc64 ~s390 ~sh ~sparc ~x86 ~x86-fbsd.

The way it works is that every arch has the stable arch keyword (ex: x86) 
and the testing or ~arch keyword (ex: ~x86).  Every package (not every 
package version, but the package, period) starts out with no keywords or 
often with only ~x86.  Then as the other archs test that it works at all, 
they add their ~arch keywords too.  A binary-only package, like certain 
proprietary codecs or games, that is known to work on only x86 (or 
whatever, but x86 is the most common) gets -* ~x86, so users know not to 
even try it on other archs.

Meanwhile, after a package has been in ~arch for a period, 30 days by 
default, with no bugs, it's a candidate for arch-stable, (the ~ is 
removed).  The gentoo package maintainer, if they believe that version is 
ready for stable, can then open a stabilization request bug, CCing all 
the ~arch keyworded archs, asking them to test and stabilize.  Then all 
the individual arch project devs and ATs (arch-testers) run their tests 
to see that it works with all the other stable packages, and if it does 
and no other bugs are found, the package is stabilized on each arch 
independently.

Once a package (any version, or at least any version within the major 
version slot, kde4 is treated separately from kde3, for instance) has 
been marked ~arch on a particular arch, then all new versions normally 
get ~arch automatically as well, unless the package maintainer believes 
there's a reason NOT to do so.

But that's quite a list of archs up there, some of which are pretty 
minor, with only a single dev or two working on them, while others, 
especially x86 and amd64, have a dozen or more devs and arch-testers 
working on them.  Some archs are considered experimental and generally do 
not get arch-stable keywords at all, only ~arch, or they'll get stable 
keywords only for a very limited subset of packages, the base toolchain, 
bash, portage and the python it requires, the various GNU utils, little 
else.  Notably, experimental also means that security support isn't 
guaranteed -- there isn't enough manpower to ensure that security-stables 
get tested and stabilized on those archs, and Gentoo doesn't claim there 
is.  Others cast a wider net but not everything, and tend to be rather 
behind in stabilizing.  Every few years one of the minor archs gets 
really behind, to the point the package maintainers are getting 
frustrated because they can't pull old packages out of the tree because 
it's the only stable version for that minor arch, and the arch hasn't 
been able to keep up.  Then there's a big debate on the gentoo-dev list, 
and either the arch gets some help (if it's possible, some archs require 
specialized knowledge), or it drops to experimental.

So not every package has all those arch keywords, in either stable or 
~arch form.  That list was pulled from gcc, since it's rather core to all 
archs on a from-source distro like gentoo.

But some package versions can be moved to the tree without keywords, or 
with them, but hard-masked, for testing.  gcc 4.6.0 and 4.6.1 are 
currently in this category.  They are in the tree for those brave enough 
to try them, but not all packages yet have the patches applied, even in 
their ~arch versions, that are necessary to build them with gcc 4.6, so 
4.6 can't be unmasked even to ~arch yet, for /any/ arch.  But it's in the 
tree for those who want to keyword unmask it locally, to try it.  And 
gentoo has a gcc-switcher mechanism that makes it easy to switch the 
default gcc, which helps.  However, as those (like me) who try often find 
out, it's still possible to build 200+ of the kde packages, for instance, 
then find one that won't build with a new gcc, but you've already built 
cmake and all the others with the new gcc, so you either have to suffer 
without that single package, drum up a patch from somewhere (often some 
distro bugtracker or another has the patch already prepared, you just 
have to apply it), or rebuild everything back to the OLD gcc again, just 
because the 220th package out of 230 kde packages that you have 
installed, won't build with the new gcc.  THAT is why it takes so long to 
get a new gcc into even ~arch on gentoo, because it get go to ~arch until 
the entire ~arch keyworded tree (for whatever arch) can be built with 
it.  Then when it does, of course the process starts over for arch-
stable, as all those ~arch versions now have to be stabilized with their 
patches supporting the new gcc, before the new gcc itself can be 
stabilized.

So on gentoo, just being "in the tree" doesn't mean it's unmasked to 
anyone at all, tho it /often/ means it's unmasked to at least ~arch users.

Meanwhile, the various projects like gentoo/kde have their own overlays 
as well.  This is where ebuilds that may well still be broken are kept, 
and often, as with kde, the ebuilds for the pre-release versions, like 
the 4.6.95 (aka 4.7-rc2) that I'm running, as well as the "live-vcs-
build" versions, normally signaled on gentoo with a variant on the 9999 
version string (so 4.6.49.9999 denotes upstream 4.6 branch, except that's 
removed now as there's no more 4.6 releases scheduled, 4.7.49.9999 
denotes the 4.7 branch, and 9999 denotes trunk/master/HEAD, the 
4.x.49.9999 being chosen so it's lower than the 4.x.50 first upstream 
alpha that will eventually become 4.y).

As for current kdepim, including kmail, akregator, etc.  4.4.11.1 is
arch-stable (for amd64 ppc x86, also ~ppc64, but they don't have a stable 
kde on gentoo at all) and 4.6.1 is ~arch for amd64 x86, and for the 
prefix-builds (portage running as a guest on something other than gentoo) 
for ~amd64-linux and ~x86-linux.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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