[gentoo-desktop] Re: [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME

[Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>]

Maciej Mrozowski posted on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:40:17 +0100 as excerpted:

> And I fail to see *any* point in forcing users to learn Gentoo internals
> (sic! like USE flags). What else? Ebuild syntax so that they're able to
> get to know what particular global USE flag is responsible for, when
> someone forgot (or decided not to) describe it in metadata.xml even when
> semantics is different? Maybe I sound too harsh here, but that's because
> I'm not ideologist - I'm practical man.

Actually, yes.  Gentoo has never been a hand-holding distribution.  We 
try to provide documentation and reasonable defaults for any apps the 
user chooses to install, and let the user configure what they will.

For some time I've wondered about all those profiles.  IMO, for pure/
normal USE flag issues, we don't need profiles.  Profiles are for things 
such as setting the arch, masking stuff that won't run on that arch, 
doing the necessary to make multilib work as appropriate, setting up a 
basic "system" set of packages, etc.

After that, it's upto[1] the user.  USE flags are documented in the 
handbook, and a major defining part of what makes Gentoo, Gentoo.  If 
they can't even manage to learn USE flag basics, honestly, they'd be 
better off with a different distribution, probably something that does a 
bit more hand-holding, like Ubuntu, because they're going thru a whole 
lot of additional hassle compiling stuff, etc, for very little payoff in 
practical terms, because they simply aren't using Gentoo as it was 
designed to be used.

So IMO, few if any USE flags should be set in the profiles.  That is, or 
should be, upto the user to decide.  In general, if a USE flag is not set 
in a user's make.conf, it shouldn't be on, with few exceptions definitely 
not at the system level, and with some exceptions, not at the individual 
ebuild/pkg level either.

---

[1] "Upto": Yeah, I know, but Wictionary already defines it as a "common 
misspelling", so make it even more common and eventually it'll no longer 
be a misspelling but considered normal and correct usage, just as into is 
no longer a misspelling but normal and correct usage.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman