PackageKit with gentoo or frugalware

Today I stumbled on the following blog post – basically, it's a developer from gentoo saying that because PackageKit won't ask the user for compile flags it's unsuitable for use in gentoo. The author then goes on to define an overly complex abstraction for package management suitable for gentoo.

I appreciate gentoo is not a “install epiphany” type distro, more a “configure firefox with libxml and libsvg” type distro. That's fine; choice is a great thing, but I don't think implementing yet another abstraction is going to work for a distro like that.
And then I found the following IRC log about frugalware, also doing the same with a frugalware specific gfpm. Really, some of these frugalware guys need to be hit with a big clue stick – read the IRC log and see what I mean. They don't want to ship pam, or PolicyKit, or any software install tool that “depend(s) on any external software like dbus”. Indeed.

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hughsie

Richard has over 10 years of experience developing open source software. He is the maintainer of GNOME Software, PackageKit, GNOME Packagekit, GNOME Power Manager, GNOME Color Manager, colord, and UPower and also contributes to many other projects and opensource standards. Richard has three main areas of interest on the free desktop, color management, package management, and power management. Richard graduated a few years ago from the University of Surrey with a Masters in Electronics Engineering. He now works for Red Hat in the desktop group, and also manages a company selling open source calibration equipment. Richard's outside interests include taking photos and eating good food.

One thought on “PackageKit with gentoo or frugalware”

  1. Unless I've been completely misreading things, and I have been following since your first PackageKit post, wouldn't PackageKit be separate from package system configuration anyways? The way I pictured it for Gentoo, I'd install, configure my USE flags, and then instead of running 'emerge –sync && emerge -uDvat –newuse world' every morning, PackageKit would do it in the background and just tell me when there are updates, leaving Portage to deal with the configuration. PackageKit is meant to work on top of the “native” package management system, right?

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