Re: news item: Introduction of app-alternatives/coreutils

On Wed, 25 Mar 2026 at 19:56, Marc Schiffbauer <[email protected]> wrote:
> * Alexey Sokolov schrieb am 24.03.26 um 19:24 Uhr:
> > 1. don't touch sys-apps/coreutils at all (for now)
> > 2. make sys-apps/uutils-coreutils install the files to e.g.
> > /usr/libexec/uutils
> > 3. make sys-apps/uutils-coreutils[a use flag] or maybe a separate
> > package(?) install a file like /etc/env.d/uutils which would add
> > /usr/libexec/uutils to PATH before /usr/bin
> >
> > This makes them coinstallable, and using the changed environment you
> > can call the utils by their usual name
>
> I like that idea!

That would break posix if gnu coreutils isn't installed. Fixing that
would require symlinks, either like app-aternative does or with flags
and a virtual like Ulrich suggested.

I don't really understand the pushback against the app-alternatives
solution, I'm guessing it comes from a desire to not touch the
original coreutils ebuild at all, but that's IMHO a bad calculation,
it makes things more complex. App-alternative is clean, symetrical,
and the simplest to use. It has served that usecase well for 12 other
packages.

I just need to tweak app-alternatives/coreutils make it more in line
with other app-alternative ebuilds and extra safe. I do find it ironic
that people in this thread have been complaining both that this change
was too risky and that it didn't need a news item ;)