Openmotif No Longer Available?

[mhodak]

After latest update, package manager suggests removing the openmotif package because "support has been dropped". Is this really the case?

It also marks motif-dependent packages (I need one of them and installed it on purpose) for removal.

Thanks.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Can you use Motif instead of Open Motif? Motif has now been made FOSS. Version 2.3.4 is the first Free release (GNU LGPL) and the package x11-libs/motif-2.3.4 added to Portage (see Gentoo Bugzilla Bug Report No. 443610) and should be built for the Entropy repository shortly, I expect.

[mhodak]

Actually at the end - this is using sulfur, which after any actions pops up a window recommending removal of openmotif - but when I look at which packages are actually marked fro removal it is both motif-2.3.3-r1 as well as openmotif-2.3.3-r1. Also, it wants to remove grace, a package that I need and that is in my world file.

I do not really care about motif vs openmotif, I just need grace that depends on one of those, but somehow now it wants to remove that one as well along with both openmotif and motif.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Fear not, the Grace ebuild in Portage has been updated to reflect Motif's change to FOSS and the demise of Open Motif. The versions of the Grace ebuild that have been updated to reflect this change are 5.1.22-r2 and 5.1.22-r3. See http://packages.gentoo.org/package/sci- ... tion/grace:

Update dependency after package move from x11-libs/openmotif to x11-libs/motif.

So, as soon as the Entropy repository package maintainers build motif-2.3.4 and put it in the Entropy repository, grace-5.1.22-r2 and/or grace-5.1.22-r3 will be built with FOSS Motif support and put in the Entropy repository too. If you need this urgently I suggest you file a request by clicking on the link 'Bugs' at the top of this page. Alternatively, you can try to install Grace 5.1.22-r3 and Motif 2.3.4 via the Portage package manager instead, although you'll need to do some preparation to use Portage for the first time, as shown below:

Code: Select all

equo install git
equo install subversion
equo remove openmotif
emerge --sync
layman -S
layman -d sabayon
layman -d sabayon-distro
layman -a sabayon
layman -a sabayon-distro
layman -S
emerge -C openmotif
FEATURES="-collision-protect -protect-owned" ACCEPT_LICENSE="*" emerge -1v =motif-2.3.4 =grace-5.1.22-r3
equo rescue spmsync

(Some of the commands above could be superfluous but I don't know the state of your installation, so I have added belt and braces.)

Additionally, I suggest you temporarily mask Motif 2.3.4 and Grace 5.1.22-r3 in Entropy after installing them via Portage, to stop Entropy trying to downgrade them while Entropy does not have the latest version.

[mhodak]

Thanks for explanation. I actually am a long time Gentoo user, but for this machine I do not want to use Portage unless necessary. For now, I will stay with old versions of grace and motif and request bumps for those packages.

There is one thing, I still do not understand, though. Why does it want to uninstall motif: x11-libs/motif-2.3.3-r1 is still an existing package. I understand openmotif, that no longer exists, but motif is there and thus should be fine to stay installed and then updated when 2.3.4 becomes stable in Entropy.

[Fitzcarraldo]

If you didn't install Motif explicitly (i.e. it was only pulled in when you installed something else that depends on Motif) and it is not needed by any other package currently installed on your machine (i.e. it has become a dangling dependency), presumably Entropy will remove it because nothing else needs it. Entropy is quite clever that way. BTW, if you ever want to double check that all libraries and dependencies are correct, and fix anything that happens to be broken, just do:

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# equo libtest
# equo deptest

When you install grace-5.1.22-r3, if Motif is not installed (or the required version of Motif is not installed) then Entropy will install it automatically if it is a required dependency, which, according to the Grace 5.1.22-r3 ebuild, it is:

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DEPEND="
media-libs/t1lib
media-libs/tiff
sys-libs/zlib
>=x11-libs/motif-2.3:0
x11-libs/xbae
fftw? ( sci-libs/fftw:2.1 )
jpeg? ( virtual/jpeg )
netcdf? ( sci-libs/netcdf )
png? ( media-libs/libpng )"

Notice that the dependency is >=x11-libs/motif-2.3:0, so the precise version of Motif that Entropy would install will depend on the precise version alongside which the Entropy Grace 5.1.22-r3 package was built and is currently in the Entropy repository. Think of the Entropy repository as a sort of remote Gentoo system with all the packages built and ready to be downloaded to Entropy users' machines. As Motif 2.3.4 is currently the latest version in Portage, I imagine that is the version that will be built by the Entropy repository maintainer, in which case Entropy would automatically install Motif 2.3.4 (if it isn't already installed) when you use Entropy to install Grace 5.1.22-r3.

To check dependencies, reverse dependencies and so on for Entropy packages, use the command equo query <option> <package name>. You can see a list of the options for the equo query command by using the --help switch:

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# equo query --help
usage: equo query [-h] [--verbose] [--quiet]
                 
                  {belongs,changelog,revdeps,description,files,installed,license,list,mimetype,associate,needed,orphans,required,sets,slot,tags,revisions,graph,revgraph}
                  ...

repository query tools

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --verbose, -v         verbose output
  --quiet, -q           quiet output

action:
  repository query tools

  {belongs,changelog,revdeps,description,files,installed,license,list,mimetype,associate,needed,orphans,required,sets,slot,tags,revisions,graph,revgraph}
                        available commands
    belongs             resolve what package a file belongs to
    changelog           show package changelog
    revdeps             show reverse dependencies of package
    description         search package by description
    files               show files owned by package
    installed           search installed packages
    license             show packages using the given license
    list                list packages
    mimetype            show packages able to handle the given mimetype
    associate           associate file to packages able to handle it
    needed              show runtime libraries needed by the given package
    orphans             search files not belonging to any packages
    required            show packages requiring the given library name
    sets                search package sets
    slot                show packages owning the given slot
    tags                show packages owning the given tag
    revisions           show packages at the given revision
    graph               show the direct dependencies graph for the given
                        package
    revgraph            show the inverse dependencies graph for the given
                        package

[mhodak]

Thanks for great info!

How can I get list of packages that should be uninstalled, i.e the list I see after sulfur installs something? I have tried "equo unusedpackages", but that is not the right thing - it loists way too many packages and I am not sure why they are "unused".

Back to the motif issue: grace-5.1.22-r2 I currently have installed has the same motif dependency you mentioned (>=x11-libs/motif-2.3:0). So I understand why openmotif is something that sulfur wants to remove, but not motif (and grace). To be more specific, when sulfur is finished with whatever function it is performing, it pops up a window showing packages that "are no longer available". That window lists openmotif and I now understand why, but when I close this window and look into "Install" tab, I see that both grace-5.1.22-r2 and motif-2.3.3-r1 are marked for removal. That part I do not understand, I installed grace specifically, it is recorded in the world file - /var/lib/portage/world (although I am not sure if Sabayon uses the world file the same way Gentoo does). So I do not see any reason why grace-5.1.22-r2 gets autoselected for removal.

[mhodak]

Removed grace and dependencies (motif and openmotif) and installed it again and now everything seems normal, i.e. sulfur does not want to uninstall grace and motif anymore. No idea what the problem was before, perhaps grace was not recongnized as an application I installed - it was recorded in the world file, but I am not sure of Entropy uses that.

Second question: what is equo command for finding unneeded packages?

[Fitzcarraldo]

I'm not sure about precisely what Entropy does with the Portage world file but my understanding -- which could be wrong as I am no Entropy expert -- is that packages installed via Entropy are recorded by Entropy in the Portage world file but the contents of the Portage world file are not used by Entropy. The Entropy database of packages is in a SQLite file in the directory /var/lib/entropy/client/database/amd64/sabayon-weekly/standard/amd64/5/, so I'm guessing that Entropy package installation status is also recorded in that database rather than the Portage world file. I.e. my guess is that Entropy writes to the Portage world file when an Entropy package is installed but does not read from the Portage world file to determine what is installed in Entropy. See Is there a world file?, Back Up and Re-install [Solved] and https://git.sabayon.org/entropy.git/log ... ep&q=world. My guess is based on my memory that, in earlier days, Entropy did not touch the Portage world file and people would post in these forums from time to time asking about the list of packages in the Portage world file.

Regarding your second question, see Ophan packages (of course the user posting that meant 'Orphan packages').