Sam James <[email protected]> writes:

> Hi!
>
> sys-libs/libunwind was the main library for providing backtraces on
> crashes (think of e.g. Xorg's logging) for quite some time, but it
> doesn't support a bunch of features like our splitdebug Portage FEATURE
> properly.
>
> It's also considered deprecated upstream, in search of a new maintainer,
> and doesn't work with Intel CET (a hardening feature).
>
> I think the main splitdebug problem is
> https://github.com/libunwind/libunwind/issues/286, if anyone's curious.
>
> In a bunch of ebuilds, we currently have USE=unwind to control libunwind
> use where there's also a dependency on dev-libs/elfutils that is
> separately controlled:
>
> * dev-debug/ltrace
> * dev-debug/strace
> * dev-lang/ghc
> * dev-libs/elfutils
> * dev-util/perf
> * media-libs/gstreamer
> * x11-apps/igt-gpu-tools
>
> elfutils is far preferred for this, and I'd like to encourage migration
> to it.
>
> How should we handle this?
>
> Some options:
> * Should we make USE=unwind mean "use elfutils" in cases where both
> are supported?
> * Related: What about cases where USE=unwind exists and actually causes 
> libunwind
> to be used over elfutils right now?
> * If not, should we have USE=elfutils (which feels very vague and that
> it is unilkely users will want to turn that on, its purpose isn't
> obvious) for those?

parona and I discussed this, where he'd suggested along the lines of:
* USE=unwind controls the feature
* USE=libunwind controls the provider, and we'd prefer elfutils (so
USE=unwind would mean elfutils usually)

i.e. give it the usual "provider" treatment like IM/GM and ffmpeg/libav
and so on, and that seems like obviously the best path now I heard it ;)

>
> thanks,
> sam

sam

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