[gentoo-dev] DEPENDing on system components

[gentoo-dev] DEPENDing on system components

[Dan Armak]

Hi all,

Can someone enlighten me: why DEPEND/RDEPEND on packages which are *always* 
present on the system, and are even pre-built in build snapshots? For example 
some ebuilds explicitly depend on virtual/glibc, what's the point in that? 
Many ebuilds use things like flex bison etc. to compile. When creating 
non-critical, non-system ebuilds which certainly won't be built before glibc 
or the kernel - should I keep track of these things?

-- 

Dan Armak
Gentoo Linux Developer
Matan, Israel

Re: [gentoo-dev] DEPENDing on system components

[Daniel Robbins]

On Mon, Jul 23, 2001 at 09:25:46PM +0300, Dan Armak wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Can someone enlighten me: why DEPEND/RDEPEND on packages which are *always* 
> present on the system, and are even pre-built in build snapshots? For example 
> some ebuilds explicitly depend on virtual/glibc, what's the point in that? 
> Many ebuilds use things like flex bison etc. to compile. When creating 
> non-critical, non-system ebuilds which certainly won't be built before glibc 
> or the kernel - should I keep track of these things?

This is necessary so that you can build a complete system from scratch in the
right order, i.e:

# export ROOT=/mnt/gentoo
# emerge system

It's just safer to have some of these basic dependencies (like virtual/glibc)
since they help "emerge system" with the build ordering.  Also, some of these
more basic dependencies *may not* be standard for embedded Gentoo Linux systems.

Best Regards,

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
President/CEO					http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.			

Re: [gentoo-dev] DEPENDing on system components

[Dan Armak]

On Monday 23 July 2001 21:29, you wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 23, 2001 at 09:25:46PM +0300, Dan Armak wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Can someone enlighten me: why DEPEND/RDEPEND on packages which are
> > *always* present on the system, and are even pre-built in build
> > snapshots? For example some ebuilds explicitly depend on virtual/glibc,
> > what's the point in that? Many ebuilds use things like flex bison etc. to
> > compile. When creating non-critical, non-system ebuilds which certainly
> > won't be built before glibc or the kernel - should I keep track of these
> > things?
>
> This is necessary so that you can build a complete system from scratch in
> the right order, i.e:
>
> # export ROOT=/mnt/gentoo
> # emerge system
>
> It's just safer to have some of these basic dependencies (like
> virtual/glibc) since they help "emerge system" with the build ordering. 
> Also, some of these more basic dependencies *may not* be standard for
> embedded Gentoo Linux systems.
>
I understand that. Problem is, most packages don't have a published list for 
the basic utilities which they use. To find out you basically have to read 
the Makefile and look for any such commands. Buildinig an 'empty' system that 
doesn't even have flex etc. sounds rather difficult, unless I just remove 
flex from an existing one. So in really high-level things like enscript which 
I just added, is it an absolute must?
Besides this is easy enough to fix if someone encounters a missing dependency.
-- 

Dan Armak
Gentoo Linux Developer
Matan, Israel

Re: [gentoo-dev] DEPENDing on system components

[Daniel Robbins]

On Mon, Jul 23, 2001 at 09:49:36PM +0300, Dan Armak wrote:

> I understand that. Problem is, most packages don't have a published list for 
> the basic utilities which they use. To find out you basically have to read 
> the Makefile and look for any such commands. Buildinig an 'empty' system that 
> doesn't even have flex etc. sounds rather difficult, unless I just remove 
> flex from an existing one. So in really high-level things like enscript which 
> I just added, is it an absolute must?
> Besides this is easy enough to fix if someone encounters a missing dependency.

Just try your best to be comprehensive; we can always add more dependencies as
they are found.  But a comprehensive, accurate set of dependencies *is* a good
thing.

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
President/CEO					http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.			

Re: [gentoo-dev] DEPENDing on system components

[Dan Armak]

On Monday 23 July 2001 21:50, you wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 23, 2001 at 09:49:36PM +0300, Dan Armak wrote:
> > I understand that. Problem is, most packages don't have a published list
> > for the basic utilities which they use. To find out you basically have to
> > read the Makefile and look for any such commands. Buildinig an 'empty'
> > system that doesn't even have flex etc. sounds rather difficult, unless I
> > just remove flex from an existing one. So in really high-level things
> > like enscript which I just added, is it an absolute must?
> > Besides this is easy enough to fix if someone encounters a missing
> > dependency.
>
> Just try your best to be comprehensive; we can always add more dependencies
> as they are found.  But a comprehensive, accurate set of dependencies *is*
> a good thing.
Undoubtedly. OK, will try :-)
-- 

Dan Armak
Gentoo Linux Developer
Matan, Israel

Re: [gentoo-dev] DEPENDing on system components

[Achim Gottinger]

Dan Armak wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Can someone enlighten me: why DEPEND/RDEPEND on packages which are *always*
> present on the system, and are even pre-built in build snapshots? For example
> some ebuilds explicitly depend on virtual/glibc, what's the point in that?
> Many ebuilds use things like flex bison etc. to compile. When creating
> non-critical, non-system ebuilds which certainly won't be built before glibc
> or the kernel - should I keep track of these things?

Well the glibc dependencie is there to spearate packages that need glibc
from those who do not link against it
like for example docs or some java binary packages. If a package links
agains flex then flex should be in the depend variable, if it only uses
the flex binary during build, you don't have to add it to depend.

bye achim~

> 
> --
> 
> Dan Armak
> Gentoo Linux Developer
> Matan, Israel
> 
> _______________________________________________
> gentoo-dev mailing list
> gentoo-dev@cvs.gentoo.org
> http://cvs.gentoo.org/mailman/listinfo/gentoo-dev

Re: [gentoo-dev] DEPENDing on system components

[Daniel Robbins]

On Tue, Jul 24, 2001 at 08:48:13PM +0200, Achim Gottinger wrote:

> Well the glibc dependencie is there to spearate packages that need glibc from
> those who do not link against it like for example docs or some java binary
> packages. If a package links agains flex then flex should be in the depend
> variable, if it only uses the flex binary during build, you don't have to add
> it to depend.

Well, I'd say that *technically*, you *can* refrain from adding it to DEPEND,
but it's still best to include it.  But technically, Achim is correct.  You
should only need to include flex or gcc in DEPEND if you need to ensure that
you are using a recent version of flex or gcc for building (which may be needed
if, for example, a particular ebuild simply won't compile with a previous
version of flex or gcc.)  Besides that, don't worry about adding standard
development stuff to DEPEND.

Best Regards,

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
Chief Architect/President			http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.