[gentoo-dev] Portage2 super USE flag suggestin

[Craig Joly <craig@taipan.mudshark.org>]

A complaint that I've seen in the comments section of every single
Gentoo review is "I tried to emerge VIM on my server and it wants to
install X.  Gentoo sucks!"  or something along those lines.  At first,
the answer seems obvious:
USE="-X" emerge vim
It doesn't work, unless you happen to have the rest of your USE flags
set exactly right.  When you look at the dependancies in the ebuild,
you find that it also can depend on gtk.  All right:
USE="-X -gtk" emerge vim
Still wants to install X.  Now, we start digging.  And discover that
python is causing the problem because it can depend on tcltk, which
depends on X.
USE="-X -gtk -tcltk" emerge vim
This should work in all cases.  As far as I can tell.
Same problem with nethack and a few other programs.  It's not a big
deal for those of us who are willing to dig through all of the ebuilds
looking for a stray dependency, just a pain in the ass, but it really
sucks for new users who just want to set up a server.

A possible solution: super USE flags, for want of a better name.
Something along the lines of USE="noX", where
noX=-X -gtk -gtk2 -qt -qtmt -tcltk -fltk -gnome -gnome-libs -kde -bonobo -xv -dga (any other toolkits, etc)
nodb=-postgres -mysql -berkdb -gdbm -innodb (any other databases)
nosound=-als -oss -esd -arts -oggvorbis (any other sound stuff)
nofb=-directfb fbcon
noscript=-perl -python -ruby -tcltk -guile

I think you get the idea.  That way, if you want to guarantee
installing vim without X support:
USE="noX" emerge vim

What do you guys think.

-- 
Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.