User:Maffblaster/Gentoo ideas

This page lists Article description::various improvement ideas I have for Gentoo (as a distribution).

Portkey - Cool name for software.

Python Zen

Quick update system
Recently I worked on a Gentoo system that was not updated since 2020.10. Updating via traditional systems were not working due to Portage not supporting a new EAPI (EAPI 8). Attempting to follow Sam's Portage rescue steps worked up until trying to perform a world update. Sometimes there are too many sticky points to update an old system, so it be easier to capture the world file, profile setting, and generate a whole new base-system. The goal would be to generate an up-to-date version of the old image. Look into Project:RelEng GRS?

This is also useful to submit a job to a powerful host and have that host return a disk image file to overwrite the entire drive. This would imply the image is smaller than the target drive, and may require a run-once partition expander script to run (like GenPi64 does on first boot).

Certain packages may have been removed from ::gentoo, and these will need to be hand-reconciled manually.

Apport
Apport is program that catches crash dumps and renames them according to some qualifying parameters.


 * Homepage: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Apport
 * Source: https://code.launchpad.net/~apport-hackers/apport/trunk
 * Releases: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/a/apport/

Also look into Whoopsie.

EAPI
A place to record various ideas that may correspond to the ebuild API.

USE flag sets
It would be nice to have a something similar to package sets, but for USE flags. Lets call them "USE sets" for the purpose of recording this idea. Something like this idea was proposed in GLEP 29! USE sets would likely need to be standardized in a per-ebuild repository basis; described with metadata (in the package's associated file?).

USE flags sets could be categorized based on MIME format, or functionality such as: ebook formats, compression algorithm formats, multimedia container formats, audio coding formats, video coding formats, graphics stuff, file system formats, wireless communication protocols.

For example, a user has chosen to select the  profile and would like to be able to quickly and easily add support for all compression algorithms that are supported in the main ebuild repository, including, but not limited to, ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , etc...

How could a user accomplish this task in Gentoo currently?

The would likely add each individual USE flag into the system's file, and add a comment to describe what the added flags do. For example:

How a user could accomplish this in the future?

Similar to license sets...

searching for USE sets
eix, emerge --search, and other tools support...

packages.g.o integration
Displaying USE flag sets packages.g.o

Testing
Tests that will need to run if a new USE flag is added into the set.

Implementing an idea into Gentoo
License groups were implemented in GLEP 23 and owned by the License project. Implementing this idea would like take a similar path: Discuss at length with a RFC to see if the idea would fly with the Gentoo project a large, (re)write a GLEP to capture the idea, then work with projects to determine how ownership would work...

Something like this idea was already proposed in GLEP 29!

repo.presync.d/* hooks
Presently Portage has a hook directory in  for post-repository syncs. This enables custom scripts to act on various repositories after a sync. The primary purpose for scripts is to generate package metadata, which in turn speeds up Portage's operations.

Similarly, the directory could enable pre-sync hooks to be executed before Portage syncs the repositories. There may be little benefit to having this option, however some users may which to do things like "snapshot" the repository before syncing.

I guess the same thing could be done with a cron job or timer.

Btrfs snapshot of rootfs before @world update
Create a script (emerge wrapper? pre/post hook?) to issue a rootfs snapshot before @world updates. Safely remove created snapshot post update.

New options

 * Output ( ?) the packages in a set, display a count of the total installed packages in the set. Example:


 * This can presently be performed with :
 * This can presently be performed with :


 * Add a  option to verify the integrity of installed packages. The digests seem to already exist; Portage just needs to reference them. Would be similar to the  command from, but accepts sets/package atoms/globs. Examples:



Better progress indicators
Portage could have a progress bar for update when updating a predefined set; particularlly when using the the  option.

Something like:

Can be enabled/disabled via the FEATURE variable (disabled by default for now).

GPG signing for binpkgs (on binhost)
Now that Portage includes GPG signing by developers on all ebuilds in the Gentoo ebuild repo it is possible to verify the integrity of upstream package releases (mostly tarballs) by running:

It is possible to get package releases directly from upstream (instead of from the Gentoo distfile mirrors) by enabling

Currently system administrators have the option of downloading the source tarball directly from upstream (via ). From Gentoo mirrors (via GENTOO_MIRRORS ).

If they have setup a binary package server (after setting USE defaults across the board). For upstream projects/developers who offer a GPG signed checksum, it would be of high quality and value to have Portage automatically ensure the tarball has not been compromised. This would probably be a new feature to include in a future EAPI release.

binpkg tarballs
Right now Portage creates tbz2 tarballs for binpkgs even when other forms of compression are used to create the files (xz, gz, lz, etc.). Portage should generate binpkgs with a corresponding extension whenever formatting is adjusted in :


 * gz = tgz
 * lz = tlz
 * xz = txz

Userspace hardening

 * Disable udev (new device creation/management) when the screen is locked. This way devices that can harm the system cannot be created unless there is a known user at the keyboard.
 * If you have to replace/re-plug the keyboard you'll be in trouble, however it would avoid things like PoisonTap, which is a newer example of this.

Zorin OS
It would be nice to see Zorin OS shell themes available in Gentoo.

Subgraph OS
I might make use of the user space application firewall present in Subgraph OS.

oz looks pretty neat as well.

Virtual workspaces in VR
Get a VR headset. Get an open source display engine. Create a virtual workspace. Configure the display however you want. Display would forward windows directly to the canvas in VR. Could show as physical monitors in a virtual space, or as a 180 or 360 degree curved environment.

I imagine this will not be more useful until VR headsets attain higher resolution, since the primary mode in this case would be viewing text.

eclean improvements
should remove old items that are no longer listed in the main repo. It should at least ask if the user would like to clean them.

eclean-kernel issue
The following issue occurs when attempting to run :