[gentoo-amd64] Where is '@system'?

[gentoo-amd64] Where is '@system'?

[Mark Knecht]

I would like emerge -epv @system to be a fairly contained set of
packages. (If possible like it was when I first built the system a
mere 5 weeks ago...) It seems out of control on my system these days
as it wants to emerge 242 packages. One major contributor is not using
a global -cups use flag in make.conf which would reduce it to 178.
That was added to figure out why Gnome didn't see Sups printers at
all. Sure, I would then have to turn on cups for certain packages but
that's OK with me. However I still see cairo, icedtea-bin, virtual
java stuff, alsa-libs, and a bunch of x11-proto files so it doesn't
feel like @system stuff to me

1) Where is the 'system' or '@system' specification on my machine?

2) If you folks run emerge -epv @system then how machine packages do you see?

Cheers,
Mark

P.S. - This actually started as a question about why the newest
version of portage won't emerge without changes in what versions of QT
the system is running and asking why portage requires QT at all, but
I'll get to that one later. ;-)

An interesting if mildly related post, at least in spirit...

http://blog.flameeyes.eu/2010/02/22/what-s-wrong-with-gentoo-anyway

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Where is '@system'?

[Paul Hartman]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 12:22 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> I would like emerge -epv @system to be a fairly contained set of
> packages. (If possible like it was when I first built the system a
> mere 5 weeks ago...) It seems out of control on my system these days
> as it wants to emerge 242 packages. One major contributor is not using
> a global -cups use flag in make.conf which would reduce it to 178.
> That was added to figure out why Gnome didn't see Sups printers at
> all. Sure, I would then have to turn on cups for certain packages but
> that's OK with me. However I still see cairo, icedtea-bin, virtual
> java stuff, alsa-libs, and a bunch of x11-proto files so it doesn't
> feel like @system stuff to me
>
> 1) Where is the 'system' or '@system' specification on my machine?
>
> 2) If you folks run emerge -epv @system then how machine packages do you see?

I believe it all depends on the profile you're using. If you're using
a desktop profile maybe that's why it's calling in GUI toolkits and
stuff...

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Where is '@system'?

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Paul Hartman
<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 12:22 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I would like emerge -epv @system to be a fairly contained set of
>> packages. (If possible like it was when I first built the system a
>> mere 5 weeks ago...) It seems out of control on my system these days
>> as it wants to emerge 242 packages. One major contributor is not using
>> a global -cups use flag in make.conf which would reduce it to 178.
>> That was added to figure out why Gnome didn't see Sups printers at
>> all. Sure, I would then have to turn on cups for certain packages but
>> that's OK with me. However I still see cairo, icedtea-bin, virtual
>> java stuff, alsa-libs, and a bunch of x11-proto files so it doesn't
>> feel like @system stuff to me
>>
>> 1) Where is the 'system' or '@system' specification on my machine?
>>
>> 2) If you folks run emerge -epv @system then how machine packages do you see?
>
> I believe it all depends on the profile you're using. If you're using
> a desktop profile maybe that's why it's calling in GUI toolkits and
> stuff...
>

Thanks Paul. I hadn't thought of that and I think you're correct. I
played a bit with changing profiles and then looking at what emerge
-epv @system would or would not do. It's clearly related.

In the end I wonder if this is a lost cause? If the packages I run
really require these flags then they are all going to get built the
same way. I'd prefer that @system was simple and that @world showed
how I had changed the system to meet my needs, but I'm not sure it's
worth the effort at this point to get there.

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Where is '@system'?

[Paul Hartman]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Paul Hartman
> <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 12:22 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I would like emerge -epv @system to be a fairly contained set of
>>> packages. (If possible like it was when I first built the system a
>>> mere 5 weeks ago...) It seems out of control on my system these days
>>> as it wants to emerge 242 packages. One major contributor is not using
>>> a global -cups use flag in make.conf which would reduce it to 178.
>>> That was added to figure out why Gnome didn't see Sups printers at
>>> all. Sure, I would then have to turn on cups for certain packages but
>>> that's OK with me. However I still see cairo, icedtea-bin, virtual
>>> java stuff, alsa-libs, and a bunch of x11-proto files so it doesn't
>>> feel like @system stuff to me
>>>
>>> 1) Where is the 'system' or '@system' specification on my machine?
>>>
>>> 2) If you folks run emerge -epv @system then how machine packages do you see?
>>
>> I believe it all depends on the profile you're using. If you're using
>> a desktop profile maybe that's why it's calling in GUI toolkits and
>> stuff...
>>
>
> Thanks Paul. I hadn't thought of that and I think you're correct. I
> played a bit with changing profiles and then looking at what emerge
> -epv @system would or would not do. It's clearly related.
>
> In the end I wonder if this is a lost cause? If the packages I run
> really require these flags then they are all going to get built the
> same way. I'd prefer that @system was simple and that @world showed
> how I had changed the system to meet my needs, but I'm not sure it's
> worth the effort at this point to get there.

Looking in the current desktop profile, it shows this:

USE="a52 aac acpi alsa branding cairo cdr dbus dts dvd dvdr eds emboss
encode evo fam firefox flac gif gnome gpm gstreamer gtk hal jpeg kde
ldap libnotify mad mikmod mng mp3 mp4 mpeg ogg opengl pdf png ppds
qt3support qt4 quicktime sdl spell svg thunar tiff truetype vorbis
win32codecs unicode usb X x264 xml xulrunner xv xvid"

So support for things like gnome, gtk, kde and qt4 are there by
default. I guess you could take the above list, put a - in front of
the ones you don't think you want and put it in make.conf and see what
happens. :)

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Where is '@system'?

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 3:23 PM, Paul Hartman
<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Paul Hartman
>> <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 12:22 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I would like emerge -epv @system to be a fairly contained set of
>>>> packages. (If possible like it was when I first built the system a
>>>> mere 5 weeks ago...) It seems out of control on my system these days
>>>> as it wants to emerge 242 packages. One major contributor is not using
>>>> a global -cups use flag in make.conf which would reduce it to 178.
>>>> That was added to figure out why Gnome didn't see Sups printers at
>>>> all. Sure, I would then have to turn on cups for certain packages but
>>>> that's OK with me. However I still see cairo, icedtea-bin, virtual
>>>> java stuff, alsa-libs, and a bunch of x11-proto files so it doesn't
>>>> feel like @system stuff to me
>>>>
>>>> 1) Where is the 'system' or '@system' specification on my machine?
>>>>
>>>> 2) If you folks run emerge -epv @system then how machine packages do you see?
>>>
>>> I believe it all depends on the profile you're using. If you're using
>>> a desktop profile maybe that's why it's calling in GUI toolkits and
>>> stuff...
>>>
>>
>> Thanks Paul. I hadn't thought of that and I think you're correct. I
>> played a bit with changing profiles and then looking at what emerge
>> -epv @system would or would not do. It's clearly related.
>>
>> In the end I wonder if this is a lost cause? If the packages I run
>> really require these flags then they are all going to get built the
>> same way. I'd prefer that @system was simple and that @world showed
>> how I had changed the system to meet my needs, but I'm not sure it's
>> worth the effort at this point to get there.
>
> Looking in the current desktop profile, it shows this:
>
> USE="a52 aac acpi alsa branding cairo cdr dbus dts dvd dvdr eds emboss
> encode evo fam firefox flac gif gnome gpm gstreamer gtk hal jpeg kde
> ldap libnotify mad mikmod mng mp3 mp4 mpeg ogg opengl pdf png ppds
> qt3support qt4 quicktime sdl spell svg thunar tiff truetype vorbis
> win32codecs unicode usb X x264 xml xulrunner xv xvid"
>
> So support for things like gnome, gtk, kde and qt4 are there by
> default. I guess you could take the above list, put a - in front of
> the ones you don't think you want and put it in make.conf and see what
> happens. :)
>
>
Yeah, that's interesting and to some extent anyway probably involved
with why I'm getting a lot of the package I get. What I'm not
understanding yet is what packages themselves are in @system. Where do
those come from? I'm assuming that because of all these flags some
system packages then require more and more support packages as an
avalance, but I'm not understanding what list of packages gets the
whole things started.

@world is /var/lib/portage/world.

@system is ?

Thanks,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Where is '@system'?

[Richard Freeman]

On 03/04/2010 08:44 PM, Mark Knecht wrote:
> Yeah, that's interesting and to some extent anyway probably involved
> with why I'm getting a lot of the package I get. What I'm not
> understanding yet is what packages themselves are in @system. Where do
> those come from? I'm assuming that because of all these flags some
> system packages then require more and more support packages as an
> avalance, but I'm not understanding what list of packages gets the
> whole things started.
>
> @world is /var/lib/portage/world.
>
> @system is ?
>

System is set by the profile.  It is stored in the packages file.

Where it gets tricky is that profiles have inheritance.

So, start with whatever is in make.profile.  If it has a packages file, 
then everything in it is in @system for you.  There is a good chance 
that there isn't even a packages file in your profile.

Now, look in your profile directory for a file called parent.  It may 
have one or more paths in it.  Your profile inherits whatever is in 
those profiles.  Check those for packages files, and add those to @system.

Oh, you're not done, since each of those directories probably also has a 
parent file.  By now you're probably checking 4 more directories or so.

Eventually you'll run out of parents and will have identified everything 
in your @system set.

Yes, it seems messy at first, but the inheritance does make sense.  If 
you're on something typical like default/linux/amd64/10.0/desktop, 
you'll want anything that is amd64 related, anything that is gentoo 10 
related, anything that is desktop related, and so on.  Plus some 
packages are 10.0 desktop related for any arch, and some might be 10.0 
related on any sub-profile that runs on linux, and others might be 
amd64-only but only for 10.0.

The general goal is to keep @system fairly minimal.  Granted, being 
source-based Gentoo has a pretty heavy system set, since it needs to be 
able to fully bootstrap the build environment and that means a fairly 
full toolchain.

You also mentioned that you wanted @system to be as minimal as possible, 
and to have @world control most of the stuff you use.  If that is your 
desire, you might consider switching to a server profile, or even just 
plain default/linux/amd64/10.0.  If you do this you'll get a system that 
is fairly stripped down, and then you can add back in whatever you 
actually want.

The desktop profile is the best starting point for 95% of ordinary 
end-users, however.

Also - desktop is probably going to split into kde and gnome 
sub-categories, with desktop just being more generic (appropriate for 
xfce/etc - or something like a plain old window manager).  That will 
help kde/gnome users to avoid pulling in too much stuff from the other 
environment that they don't use (although I've never been able to fully 
get away with that).

I hope that helps a little...

Rich

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Where is '@system'?

[James Ausmus]

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To see bare system, do:
USE="-*" emerge -pev @system

On Mar 4, 2010 6:02 PM, "Mark Knecht" <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 3:23 PM, Paul Hartman

<paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com <paul.hartman%2Bgentoo@gmail.com>> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gma...
Yeah, that's interesting and to some extent anyway probably involved
with why I'm getting a lot of the package I get. What I'm not
understanding yet is what packages themselves are in @system. Where do
those come from? I'm assuming that because of all these flags some
system packages then require more and more support packages as an
avalance, but I'm not understanding what list of packages gets the
whole things started.

@world is /var/lib/portage/world.

@system is ?

Thanks,
Mark

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Where is '@system'?

[malc]

cat /usr/portage/profiles/base/packages - and all will be revealed :)

All profiles should inherit from this - but may provide their own
modifications - e.g.

/usr/portage/profiles/arch/sparc/packages adds sparc-utils to @system
on that set of platforms.

Cheers,
malc.

On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 1:44 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 3:23 PM, Paul Hartman
> <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Paul Hartman
>>> <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 12:22 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> I would like emerge -epv @system to be a fairly contained set of
>>>>> packages. (If possible like it was when I first built the system a
>>>>> mere 5 weeks ago...) It seems out of control on my system these days
>>>>> as it wants to emerge 242 packages. One major contributor is not using
>>>>> a global -cups use flag in make.conf which would reduce it to 178.
>>>>> That was added to figure out why Gnome didn't see Sups printers at
>>>>> all. Sure, I would then have to turn on cups for certain packages but
>>>>> that's OK with me. However I still see cairo, icedtea-bin, virtual
>>>>> java stuff, alsa-libs, and a bunch of x11-proto files so it doesn't
>>>>> feel like @system stuff to me
>>>>>
>>>>> 1) Where is the 'system' or '@system' specification on my machine?
>>>>>
>>>>> 2) If you folks run emerge -epv @system then how machine packages do you see?
>>>>
>>>> I believe it all depends on the profile you're using. If you're using
>>>> a desktop profile maybe that's why it's calling in GUI toolkits and
>>>> stuff...
>>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks Paul. I hadn't thought of that and I think you're correct. I
>>> played a bit with changing profiles and then looking at what emerge
>>> -epv @system would or would not do. It's clearly related.
>>>
>>> In the end I wonder if this is a lost cause? If the packages I run
>>> really require these flags then they are all going to get built the
>>> same way. I'd prefer that @system was simple and that @world showed
>>> how I had changed the system to meet my needs, but I'm not sure it's
>>> worth the effort at this point to get there.
>>
>> Looking in the current desktop profile, it shows this:
>>
>> USE="a52 aac acpi alsa branding cairo cdr dbus dts dvd dvdr eds emboss
>> encode evo fam firefox flac gif gnome gpm gstreamer gtk hal jpeg kde
>> ldap libnotify mad mikmod mng mp3 mp4 mpeg ogg opengl pdf png ppds
>> qt3support qt4 quicktime sdl spell svg thunar tiff truetype vorbis
>> win32codecs unicode usb X x264 xml xulrunner xv xvid"
>>
>> So support for things like gnome, gtk, kde and qt4 are there by
>> default. I guess you could take the above list, put a - in front of
>> the ones you don't think you want and put it in make.conf and see what
>> happens. :)
>>
>>
> Yeah, that's interesting and to some extent anyway probably involved
> with why I'm getting a lot of the package I get. What I'm not
> understanding yet is what packages themselves are in @system. Where do
> those come from? I'm assuming that because of all these flags some
> system packages then require more and more support packages as an
> avalance, but I'm not understanding what list of packages gets the
> whole things started.
>
> @world is /var/lib/portage/world.
>
> @system is ?
>
> Thanks,
> Mark
>
>

RE: [gentoo-amd64] Where is '@system'?

[Sylvain Alain]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 4004 bytes --]


Hi guys, I talked with my friend Zac Medico and your @system is mostly here :

/usr/portage/profiles/base

Have fun :P



From: d2_racing@hotmail.com
To: zmedico@gentoo.org
Subject: FW: [gentoo-amd64] Where is '@system'?
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 02:22:32 +0000








Hi Zac, can you reply to the gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org and close that thread :P

Thanks

Salut
alp




> Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 17:44:36 -0800
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-amd64] Where is '@system'?
> From: markknecht@gmail.com
> To: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org
> 
> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 3:23 PM, Paul Hartman
> <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 11:13 AM, Paul Hartman
> >> <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 12:22 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>> I would like emerge -epv @system to be a fairly contained set of
> >>>> packages. (If possible like it was when I first built the system a
> >>>> mere 5 weeks ago...) It seems out of control on my system these days
> >>>> as it wants to emerge 242 packages. One major contributor is not using
> >>>> a global -cups use flag in make.conf which would reduce it to 178.
> >>>> That was added to figure out why Gnome didn't see Sups printers at
> >>>> all. Sure, I would then have to turn on cups for certain packages but
> >>>> that's OK with me. However I still see cairo, icedtea-bin, virtual
> >>>> java stuff, alsa-libs, and a bunch of x11-proto files so it doesn't
> >>>> feel like @system stuff to me
> >>>>
> >>>> 1) Where is the 'system' or '@system' specification on my machine?
> >>>>
> >>>> 2) If you folks run emerge -epv @system then how machine packages do you see?
> >>>
> >>> I believe it all depends on the profile you're using. If you're using
> >>> a desktop profile maybe that's why it's calling in GUI toolkits and
> >>> stuff...
> >>>
> >>
> >> Thanks Paul. I hadn't thought of that and I think you're correct. I
> >> played a bit with changing profiles and then looking at what emerge
> >> -epv @system would or would not do. It's clearly related.
> >>
> >> In the end I wonder if this is a lost cause? If the packages I run
> >> really require these flags then they are all going to get built the
> >> same way. I'd prefer that @system was simple and that @world showed
> >> how I had changed the system to meet my needs, but I'm not sure it's
> >> worth the effort at this point to get there.
> >
> > Looking in the current desktop profile, it shows this:
> >
> > USE="a52 aac acpi alsa branding cairo cdr dbus dts dvd dvdr eds emboss
> > encode evo fam firefox flac gif gnome gpm gstreamer gtk hal jpeg kde
> > ldap libnotify mad mikmod mng mp3 mp4 mpeg ogg opengl pdf png ppds
> > qt3support qt4 quicktime sdl spell svg thunar tiff truetype vorbis
> > win32codecs unicode usb X x264 xml xulrunner xv xvid"
> >
> > So support for things like gnome, gtk, kde and qt4 are there by
> > default. I guess you could take the above list, put a - in front of
> > the ones you don't think you want and put it in make.conf and see what
> > happens. :)
> >
> >
> Yeah, that's interesting and to some extent anyway probably involved
> with why I'm getting a lot of the package I get. What I'm not
> understanding yet is what packages themselves are in @system. Where do
> those come from? I'm assuming that because of all these flags some
> system packages then require more and more support packages as an
> avalance, but I'm not understanding what list of packages gets the
> whole things started.
> 
> @world is /var/lib/portage/world.
> 
> @system is ?
> 
> Thanks,
> Mark
> 
 		 	   		  
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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Where is '@system'?

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 6:31 PM, James Ausmus <james.ausmus@gmail.com> wrote:
> To see bare system, do:
> USE="-*" emerge -pev @system
>

Actually, this is a very good way to explore the effect of certain
flags on the total package count. Thanks.

As a minimum set your command shows

USE="-*" emerge -pev @system -> Total: 86 packages

I've got a long list of flags in make.conf. With them all I get

emerge -epv @system -> Total: 242 packages

Three or four flags, enabled globally, cause most of the increase:

USE="-cups" emerge -epv @system -> Total: 178 packages

USE="-cups -java" emerge -epv @system -> Total: 139 packages

USE="-cups -java -X" emerge -epv @system -> Total: 131 packages

The other big one at the system level is -pam but I'm __very__ unsure
about removing that totally:

USE="-cups -java -X -pam" emerge -epv @system -> Total: 102 packages

Is it necessary to turn on pam features on every package on my system
that might use them?

Truly, for me it's not about package count but more about the time it
takes to build or update @system and whether this stuff is really
required. I figure pam is, I tend to think cups, java and possibly X
aren't needed at the system level. X is three packages directly and
then a few more that they seem to drag in

[ebuild   R   ] sys-apps/dbus-1.2.3-r1  USE="-X* -debug -doc (-selinux)" 0 kB
[ebuild   R   ] sys-apps/groff-1.20.1-r1  USE="-X* -examples"
LINGUAS="(-ja)" 0 kB
[ebuild   R   ] net-misc/openssh-5.2_p1-r3  USE="ldap pam tcpd -X*
-X509 -hpn -kerberos -libedit -pkcs11 (-selinux) -skey -smartcard
-static" 0 kB

I'm guessing X for openssh is a good idea if you want to do ssh -X -Y
etc. but why does one need X for groff or dbus? (Ah, 'user's vision'
of the mysteries of Gentoo use flags and what devs do with them...)
;-)

I'm personally thinking I'm in better shape with cups and java not in
make.conf and then adding them to packages where I really think I want
them. In the end it likely ends up with more or less the same things
on the system but fewer of them in @system.

Thanks,
Mark

P.s. - thanks to all that answered. Trying to keeping the thread count
down by just answering back once.

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Where is '@system'?

[Mark Knecht]

On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 8:24 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 6:31 PM, James Ausmus <james.ausmus@gmail.com> wrote:
>> To see bare system, do:
>> USE="-*" emerge -pev @system
>>
>
> Actually, this is a very good way to explore the effect of certain
> flags on the total package count. Thanks.
>
> As a minimum set your command shows
>
> USE="-*" emerge -pev @system -> Total: 86 packages
>
> I've got a long list of flags in make.conf. With them all I get
>
> emerge -epv @system -> Total: 242 packages
>
> Three or four flags, enabled globally, cause most of the increase:
>
> USE="-cups" emerge -epv @system -> Total: 178 packages
>
> USE="-cups -java" emerge -epv @system -> Total: 139 packages
>
> USE="-cups -java -X" emerge -epv @system -> Total: 131 packages
>
> The other big one at the system level is -pam but I'm __very__ unsure
> about removing that totally:
>
> USE="-cups -java -X -pam" emerge -epv @system -> Total: 102 packages
>
> Is it necessary to turn on pam features on every package on my system
> that might use them?
>
> Truly, for me it's not about package count but more about the time it
> takes to build or update @system and whether this stuff is really
> required. I figure pam is, I tend to think cups, java and possibly X
> aren't needed at the system level. X is three packages directly and
> then a few more that they seem to drag in
>
> [ebuild   R   ] sys-apps/dbus-1.2.3-r1  USE="-X* -debug -doc (-selinux)" 0 kB
> [ebuild   R   ] sys-apps/groff-1.20.1-r1  USE="-X* -examples"
> LINGUAS="(-ja)" 0 kB
> [ebuild   R   ] net-misc/openssh-5.2_p1-r3  USE="ldap pam tcpd -X*
> -X509 -hpn -kerberos -libedit -pkcs11 (-selinux) -skey -smartcard
> -static" 0 kB
>
> I'm guessing X for openssh is a good idea if you want to do ssh -X -Y
> etc. but why does one need X for groff or dbus? (Ah, 'user's vision'
> of the mysteries of Gentoo use flags and what devs do with them...)
> ;-)
>
> I'm personally thinking I'm in better shape with cups and java not in
> make.conf and then adding them to packages where I really think I want
> them. In the end it likely ends up with more or less the same things
> on the system but fewer of them in @system.
>
> Thanks,
> Mark
>
> P.s. - thanks to all that answered. Trying to keeping the thread count
> down by just answering back once.
>

One additional message about not selecting gdbm and berkdb together
ended up removing only 7 packages from the machine overall but reduced
@system from 242 packages to 138. I think that's a move in the right
direction for me anyway.

Final make.conf flag set:

USE="aac alsa cairo caps cdda cddb cdparanoia cdr dts dvd dvdr ffmpeg
flac fltk ftp gnome hal ieee1394 jack kde lame jpeg ladspa lame lash
libsamplerate mmx mp3 mp4 mpeg musepack nsplugin ogg semantic-desktop
sse sse2 ssse3 sse4 tifftruetype vorbis xine xv xvid vmware -bluetooth
-esound -timidity -cups -java -gdbm"

Packages removed by --depclean:

 kde-base/kppp
 dev-java/gjdoc
 media-libs/sdl-mixer
 sys-libs/gdbm
 dev-lang/tcl
 dev-java/antlr
 media-libs/libmikmod

>>> 'Selected' packages are slated for removal.
>>> 'Protected' and 'omitted' packages will not be removed.

Packages installed:   1018
Packages in world:    71
Packages in system:   50
Required packages:    1011
Number to remove:     7
firefly ~ #

Additional flags added to package.use were:

gnome-base/gnome cups
=x11-libs/qt-3.3.8b-r2 cups
app-text/ghostscript-gpl cups
net-print/foomatic-filters cups
x11-libs/gtk+ cups
gnome-base/libgnomeprint cups
x11-libs/qt-gui cups
app-office/openoffice-bin java
www-client/mozilla-firefox java
net-print/cups java
dev-util/subversion java
net-libs/xulrunner java

The qt-3.3 package is just hanging around until I update MythTV.

Thanks all,
Mark