FAQ: Paludis is Stricter than Portage

• Merging Weird Stuff
• Packages Failing src_test
• Sandbox Violations when ROOT is Set
• Repository Blacklists

Merging Weird Stuff

Paludis will refuse to merge various things:

• Device nodes, fifos and similar weird files. Portage will merge these incorrectly and then leave stray garbage lying around; Paludis refuses to do anything with them. Ebuilds that need to install fancy file types should do so in pkg_postinst.
• Non-directories on top of directories. Paludis will not let a package overwrite a directory with a non-directory. This is for your own safety. Portage doesn't bail out on this, but instead ends up partially merging content and generally making a mess of your system.

If you encounter an ebuild that does any of these, fix the ebuild.

Packages Failing src_test

Prior to version 0.26, Paludis would always run src_test. Earlier versions of this FAQ suggested using SKIP_FUNCTIONS to override this.

Unfortunately, because the QA standards in many parts of the Gentoo tree are so low, and because some Gentoo developers have such terrible attitudes towards QA, this is no longer the default behaviour. Whether or not tests are run is now controlled by the state of BUILD_OPTIONS: optional_tests in use.conf.

Sandbox Violations when ROOT is Set

Various packages will give sandbox violations when installing to somewhere other than /.

Paludis enforces ROOT via Sandbox. However, some packages don't honour ROOT. To temporarily disable sandbox for these packages, set SANDBOX_PREDICT=/ or SANDBOX_WRITE=/ as appropriate.

Repository Blacklists

Paludis will sometimes blacklist certain repositories. When using a blacklisted repository, you will receive a warning when Paludis starts up. This is not a fatal error, but you should realise that use of the repository in question will likely lead to breakages.

Repositories are only blacklisted under extreme circumstances, such as:

• When they are known to be very broken.
• When they are known to rely heavily upon quirks in Portage's behaviour that Paludis will not emulate.
• When they are known to be a security threat.