On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 1:39 AM, Rémy Oudompheng <[email protected]> wrote: > 2011/3/31 Det <[email protected]>: >> Not to keep bugging your mailboxes but I suppose the only real reasons >> for keeping all those nvidia-specific-kernel packages in the AUR boils >> down to these: >> >> 1) The user wants to install an Nvidia driver for a non-booted kernel, >> yet he doesn't want to install the driver for any the other kernels >> since the rest (or at least 1 of them) use Nouveau or similar. >> >> 2) The maintainer wants to show a link to his unofficial repository >> containing a precompiled version of his package. >> >> If these are enough to keep all that nvidia* stuff in the AUR then I >> don't mind. It'd just be nice, if somebody came up with a PKGBUILD >> that would ask the user which of the installed kernels he wanted the >> nvidia driver to be installed to. In addition the package could hold a >> simple text file listing all the unofficial repositories for using the >> precompiled packages instead or something ^^. > > I am absolutely against replacing "reproducible" PKGBUILDs (those > which do not generate variables on-the-fly and can be built in clean > chroots and installed with predictable results) with > "non-reproducible" PKGBUILDs (those which require user interaction, or > use backquotes constructs to modify their source array or $pkgver). > > For me the latter category of PKGBUILDs are only convenience solutions > (that are sometimes created to work around AUR limitations). They are > certainly useful, and most of time welcome in the AUR, but will never > in my mind replace true PKGBUILDs that correspond to deterministic and > well-defined packages. > > A package should only be deleted if it is irrevocably broken or if a > package exists that provide the same functionality *at the same level > of reproducibility and predictability*. > > Rémy. > I agree with the concept. However, in your opinion does nvidia-beta-all fall under non-reproducible? It does different things on different machines, but entirely in a non-interactive way. In case you don't want to bother to take a look at the PKGBUILD (I wouldn't), here's the basic thing it does:-
1. grep through files in /boot/ to find installed kernels 2. compile the NVIDIA driver for those kernels It cannot be compiled in a chroot (unless the requisite kernels are available), but it seems to satisfy the rest of your criteria. The discussion may be moot, however, since I just searched through the AUR for nvidia and noticed most of said packages still have maintainers (did not check whether they were out-of-date). No problem, then. I could possibly simply add white/black-listing to the PKGBUILD to cater for those who want nouveau on specific systems (though AFAIK this would require symlinking of libgl...). I hate PKGBUILDs which interactively ask for anything, there should be a sane default non-interactive behaviour, but also simple tweakables.
