GentooDepBrowser
From Freehackers
2008-03-11 - Version 1.0 of GentooDepBrowser is released
This release fixes some glitches from the 0.9 (most notably an ugly segfault on startup on most platforms..). It contains the basic stuff i wanted for 1.0 : you can browse, up and down, the dependencies. The next releases will display the same kind of meta information as eix/esearch.
GentooDepBrowser is a graphic tool to help understand package dependencies in gentoo. You can browse dependencies by clicking on packages names.
GentooDepBrowser is designed and written by Thomas Capricelli
Contents |
[edit] User Information
This software is of course only useful on a gentoo system. As python is installed on all gentoo systems, there is only one remaining dependencie : dev-python/PyQt4, Python bindings for Qt4.
[edit] Download
The first release can be downloaded here, there's actually only one python file (and a TODO).
The latest code can be taken here, but it might be slightly less tested: http://sources.freehackers.org/hg.cgi/GentooDepBrowser/raw-file/tip/GentooDepBrowser.py
To start it, write:
python GentooDepBrowser.py
You can click on any package to have it centered, and you can use the search box to find a package.
[edit] Developer information
[edit] Design
GentooDepBrowser use an internal representation of the whole portage tree, with both forward and backward (or reverse) dependencies. It's a shame portage still doesn't store and provide this information. Then this is just a matter of browsing this with a friendly user interface.
This internal representation is quite slow to create. GentooDepBrowser creates and uses a cache on the disk, which is updated when needed, based on the timestamp file stored in portage metadata dir. (which is updated each time an 'emerge --sync' succeeded).
[edit] Get source code
This project is using mercurial to handle the source code.
You can get the latest package/tarball from
You can browse the code online (and make diff or take snapshots)
If you're familiar with source control, you can get the code by cloning the mercurial repository (And hence you'll be able to update later on) using the following command (or your favorite mercurial UI client in Windows/MacOS)
hg clone http://sources.freehackers.org/hg.cgi/GentooDepBrowser
and then update it using
hg pull -u
[edit] Other projects by Orzel
- Yzis: a vi-like editor inspired by vim. Yzis aims to be a powerful, fast editor with all of Vim's features and hopefully, at some point, more.
- Opale: a very simple domestic accounting application for KDE/KOffice.
- Condi: a tool for sharing files with friends.
- Zeta Linux: Linux ported to a virtual platform.
- PythonMeshViewer: a very basic tool to display, and play with, 3D mesh models.
- GentooDepBrowser: a visual tool to browse gentoo package dependencies.