Two-level USE-flag system VAR: [gentoo-dev] USE="minimal" for kernel sources

[Tom Fredrik Blenning Klaussen <bfg-gentoo@blenning.no>]

On Wed, 2005-09-21 at 18:07 -0400, Alec Warner wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> Tom Fredrik Blenning Klaussen wrote:
> > On Thu, 2005-09-08 at 20:01 +0100, John Mylchreest wrote:
> > 
> >>For the record, there is a bug open for this. (#64009)
> >>Personally, I'm not keen on the idea.
> >>the only way which we can do this is by detecting which arch we are
> >>installing the sources, for, which immediately means many installs of
> >>USE=minimal are not the same.
> > 
> > 
> > I'm the reporter of the above mentioned bug (which for the record
> > was /only 1 year old/ September 14. I love the response time :-) )
> > I was just made aware of this discussion, so sorry about the late
> > response.
> > 
> > I really can't see the problem with several installs being dissimilar.
> > 
> > 
> >>There are plenty of other reasons I can go into, but if anyone feels
> >>strongly to push this change, then feel free to reply with justification
> >>as to why. Technical info to back it up as well please :)
> > 
> > 
> > The only real difficulty I can see is that the kernel-devs sometimes
> > pull includes from other arcs. This will cause compile errors, and under
> > no circumstances any runtime problems. If the use flag also comes with a
> > warning that use is on your own peril, and support is not given. Too bad
> > for the people ignoring the warning.
> I could see some sort of pmasked ebuild that did this.  Other than that
> though, I wouldn't want users to be able to touch it.  It's well known
> that pmasked stuff isn't supported.  One can't add a use flag to an
> ebuild and then turn around and say oh that use flag isn't supported.
> If it's not supported it shouldn't be there.

Actually  a method for masking USE flags could be a good idea. Now, as
said earlier the natural way to do this is in the kernel-2.eclass. So I
don't see how one could pmask that.

Why are you afraid of users coming near this. I don't expect this to
break anything at all, but even if the errors generated are straight
forward. The average gentoo users are not stupid. In fact if you have
come so far as to adjust something beyond the most basic USE flags at
all, you're probably advanced enough to deciphre such a message. (It
would be nice to have some knowledge of who the average gentoo user is
though.)

Now as for the USE flag system. It has actually become so big that it's
difficult to use it effectively. I would actually suggest that a two
level system of USE flags could be employed. Something like
wtk/gtk (Windowing Toolkit / gtk)
wtk/kde (Windowing Toolkit / kde)

There could also be another category
experimental/minimal

Using a flag from experimental would add a warning to the pacakge that
uses it, and an implicit understanding that tweaking of the experimental
use flags is strongly discouraged.

> Also might want to submit the ebuild to breakmygentoo or some other
> overlay.

I'll consider it, but as mentioned above it's really a change to an
eclass.

Sincerely
-- 
Tom Fredrik Klaussen
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list