[gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Doug Goldstein]

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the USE defaults are a bit INSANE... We need to get rid of some of this
crap...


./default-linux/x86/2005.0/make.defaults:USE="alsa apm arts avi berkdb
bitmap-fo nts crypt cups eds emboss encode fortran foomaticdb gdbm gif
gnome gpm gstreamer  gtk gtk2 imlib ipv6 jpeg kde libg++ libwww mad
mikmod motif mp3 mpeg ncurses nls ogg oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib
perl png python qt quicktime readline sdl spell ssl tcpd truetype
truetype-fonts type1-fonts vorbis X xml2 xmms xv zlib"


Examples include... WHY is "arts" turned on... There's absolutely no
reason for it. AFAIK, you can even build KDE without it.

Why are we turning "gnome" on... who says you want to pull in the damn
desktop?

"eds"... very very very specific Gnome app that most people don't want
support for. If I remember correctly, this was added cause someone was
too lazy to do the right work around in the ebuild.

"gtk" and "gtk2", I thought we cleaned up this mess of just 1 USE flag.
But seriously, why are these on?

"kde", uh same reason and Gnome above...

"ogg", "oggvorbis", "vorbis"... I thought we cleaned up this mess...

"gstreamer"... again Gnome specific.

"qt"... why?

"cups"... who says I want printer support.. "foomaticdb" depends on cups..

"motif"... what a horrible terrible windowing toolkit that needs to just
be rm -rf'd.

"emboss" wow... what a very very crazy specific USE flag...


Can we please clean up some of this trash?


-- 
Doug Goldstein <cardoe@gentoo.org>
http://dev.gentoo.org/~cardoe/

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Mike Frysinger]

On Monday 26 December 2005 00:09, Doug Goldstein wrote:
> the USE defaults are a bit INSANE... We need to get rid of some of this
> crap...

not really a useful endeavor unless we get something like per-package USE 
defaults

everyone has their own opinion as to what a 'good' or 'sane' default is and 
debating each flag is a waste of energy
-mike
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Dale]

Mike Frysinger wrote:

>On Monday 26 December 2005 00:09, Doug Goldstein wrote:
>  
>
>>the USE defaults are a bit INSANE... We need to get rid of some of this
>>crap...
>>    
>>
>
>not really a useful endeavor unless we get something like per-package USE 
>defaults
>
>everyone has their own opinion as to what a 'good' or 'sane' default is and 
>debating each flag is a waste of energy
>-mike
>  
>
I'm not a dev but I can see both sides.  I learned why some things are 
being pulled in that I couldn't figure out.  I use KDE but do not want 
Gnome and it appears that I have some gnome stuff installed and didn't 
know it, because of the USE line.  I guess they are in there because of 
people that are still noobies and don't know any better, like me maybe.

Maybe there needs to be more info about what is in the defaults so 
people will know.  I see now that I need to put -gnome in mine.  I have 
a lot of gnome stuff installed and had no clue I needed -gnome until I 
read this.

Just my $.02 worth, which ain't much.

Dale
:-)


-- 
To err is human, I'm most certainly human.

I have four rigs:

1:  Home built; Abit NF7 ver 2.0 w/ AMD 2500+ CPU, 1GB of ram and right now two 80GB hard drives.
2:  Home built; Iwill KK266-R w/ AMD 1GHz CPU, 256MBs of ram and a 4GB drive.
3:  Home built; Gigabyte GA-71XE4 w/ 800MHz CPU, 128MBs of ram and a 2.5GB drive.
4:  Compaq Proliant 6000 Server w/ Quad 200MHz CPUs, 128MBs of ram and a 4.3GB SCSI drive.

All run Gentoo Linux, all run folding. #1 is my desktop, 2, 3, and 4 are set up as servers.  

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Doug Goldstein]

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Mike Frysinger wrote:
> On Monday 26 December 2005 00:09, Doug Goldstein wrote:
> 
>>the USE defaults are a bit INSANE... We need to get rid of some of this
>>crap...
> 
> 
> not really a useful endeavor unless we get something like per-package USE 
> defaults
> 
> everyone has their own opinion as to what a 'good' or 'sane' default is and 
> debating each flag is a waste of energy
> -mike
> 

well there is always USE enabling... (i.e. When I emerge x11-libs/qt,
it'll turn on the "qt" USE flag)

oh, I also forgot to bitch about "fortran" as the crowd in #-dev pointed
out.

-- 
Doug Goldstein <cardoe@gentoo.org>
http://dev.gentoo.org/~cardoe/

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Mike Frysinger]

On Monday 26 December 2005 02:24, Doug Goldstein wrote:
> well there is always USE enabling... (i.e. When I emerge x11-libs/qt,
> it'll turn on the "qt" USE flag)

which we've already established quite clearly as something we wish to get rid 
of completely
-mike
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Luca Barbato]

Doug Goldstein wrote:
> the USE defaults are a bit INSANE... We need to get rid of some of this
> crap...
> 
> 
> ./default-linux/x86/2005.0/make.defaults:USE="alsa apm arts avi berkdb
> bitmap-fo nts crypt cups eds emboss encode fortran foomaticdb gdbm gif
> gnome gpm gstreamer  gtk gtk2 imlib ipv6 jpeg kde libg++ libwww mad
> mikmod motif mp3 mpeg ncurses nls ogg oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib
> perl png python qt quicktime readline sdl spell ssl tcpd truetype
> truetype-fonts type1-fonts vorbis X xml2 xmms xv zlib"
> 
> 
> Examples include... WHY is "arts" turned on... There's absolutely no
> reason for it. AFAIK, you can even build KDE without it.
> 
> Why are we turning "gnome" on... who says you want to pull in the damn
> desktop?
> 
> "eds"... very very very specific Gnome app that most people don't want
> support for. If I remember correctly, this was added cause someone was
> too lazy to do the right work around in the ebuild.
> 
> "gtk" and "gtk2", I thought we cleaned up this mess of just 1 USE flag.
> But seriously, why are these on?
> 
> "kde", uh same reason and Gnome above...
> 
> "ogg", "oggvorbis", "vorbis"... I thought we cleaned up this mess...

I didn't bitch enough to remove oggvorbis.

please update your ebuilds...

lu

-- 

Luca Barbato

Gentoo/linux Developer		Gentoo/PPC Operational Leader
http://dev.gentoo.org/~lu_zero

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Danny van Dyk]

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Hash: SHA1

Doug,

Doug Goldstein schrieb:
|>>the USE defaults are a bit INSANE... We need to get rid of some of this
|>>crap...
Buzzwords like "Stupid,INSANE,crap,bitching" beside: There are projects
which need these combinations of USE flags like Releng. They are
currently used to create the GRP set, and I don't see them growing
useless for us. Further on, the default flags are only a proposal.
Nobody forces you to use them...
|>not really a useful endeavor unless we get something like per-package USE
|>defaults
or useflag groups and a (even more) flexible profile system.

|>everyone has their own opinion as to what a 'good' or 'sane' default
is and
|>debating each flag is a waste of energy
Full ACK

| oh, I also forgot to bitch about "fortran" as the crowd in #-dev pointed
This has a purpose: There are a lot of packages in the tree which need a
proper FORTRAN compiler installed (not f2c). Without the default fortran
USE flag, people who use the GRP wouldn't be able to emerge them w/o
recompiling gcc.

As soon as USE based atoms are available, the Scientific Project will
discuss removing "fortran" from the default USE.

Danny
- --
Danny van Dyk <kugelfang@gentoo.org>
Gentoo/AMD64 Project, Gentoo Scientific Project
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gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Bastiaan Visser]

On Monday 26 December 2005 09:33, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> On Monday 26 December 2005 02:24, Doug Goldstein wrote:
> > well there is always USE enabling... (i.e. When I emerge x11-libs/qt,
> > it'll turn on the "qt" USE flag)
>
> which we've already established quite clearly as something we wish to get
> rid of completely
> -mike

aint it worth it to mention "-*" in the handbook ?
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Petteri Räty]

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Bastiaan Visser wrote:
> On Monday 26 December 2005 09:33, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> 
>>On Monday 26 December 2005 02:24, Doug Goldstein wrote:
>>
>>>well there is always USE enabling... (i.e. When I emerge x11-libs/qt,
>>>it'll turn on the "qt" USE flag)
>>
>>which we've already established quite clearly as something we wish to get
>>rid of completely
>>-mike
> 
> 
> aint it worth it to mention "-*" in the handbook ?

And then mentioning stuff like pam that almost everyone wants? There are
also things that should be on by default.

Regards,
Petteri

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 00:09:57 -0500 Doug Goldstein <cardoe@gentoo.org>
wrote:
| the USE defaults are a bit INSANE... We need to get rid of some of
| this crap...

No, you just don't understand how they work. It's not an issue of
"is foo important". It's an issue of "for packages with optional foo
support, does it make most sense for foo to be enabled by default?".

Remember that, by tradition, our default USE flag setup is for desktop
systems on archs where desktops are available. If you'd rather have a
server-like setup, persuade your arch team to introduce sparc-style
server profiles.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (I can kill you with my brain)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Jan Kundrát]

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Dale wrote:
> I'm not a dev but I can see both sides.  I learned why some things are
> being pulled in that I couldn't figure out.  I use KDE but do not want
> Gnome and it appears that I have some gnome stuff installed and didn't
> know it, because of the USE line.  I guess they are in there because of
> people that are still noobies and don't know any better, like me maybe.
> 
> Maybe there needs to be more info about what is in the defaults so
> people will know.  I see now that I need to put -gnome in mine.  I have
> a lot of gnome stuff installed and had no clue I needed -gnome until I
> read this.

Why don't you read the documentation [1] then?

[1]
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=2&chap=2#doc_chap2

WKR,
-jkt

-- 
cd /local/pub && more beer > /dev/mouth

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Jan Kundrát]

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Petteri Räty wrote:
>>aint it worth it to mention "-*" in the handbook ?

If you make a decision, http://bugs.gentoo.org/ please.

> And then mentioning stuff like pam that almost everyone wants? There are
> also things that should be on by default.

If it should be on by default, let's add it to the profile, don't ask
users to turn it on themselves.

Cheers,
-jkt

-- 
cd /local/pub && more beer > /dev/mouth


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Diego 'Flameeyes' Pettenò]

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On Monday 26 December 2005 17:32, Jan Kundrát wrote:
> If it should be on by default, let's add it to the profile, don't ask
> users to turn it on themselves.
That s what it s done now. But -* would disable it...

-- 
Diego "Flameeyes" Pettenò - http://dev.gentoo.org/~flameeyes/
Gentoo/ALT lead, Gentoo/FreeBSD, Video, AMD64, Sound, PAM, KDE

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Re[2]: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Jakub Moc]

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26.12.2005, 16:35:33, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:

> On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 00:09:57 -0500 Doug Goldstein <cardoe@gentoo.org>
> wrote:
> | the USE defaults are a bit INSANE... We need to get rid of some of
> | this crap...

> No, you just don't understand how they work. It's not an issue of
> "is foo important". It's an issue of "for packages with optional foo
> support, does it make most sense for foo to be enabled by default?".

OK, then:

alsa - this does not make most sense definitely, this horrible thing needs
to die.

emboss - "Adds support for the European Molecular Biology Open Software
Suite." WTF? Why are we abusing make.defaults for such stuff?

eds - please, fix the ebuilds properly instead of throwing the thing on
everyone. This has already caused numerous invalid bugs with people
wondering why the heck portage wants to emerge gnome with USE="-gtk -gnome"

motif - no need to repeat Cardoe's description...  and this has caused tons
of "cups depends on X" bugs.


-- 
Best regards,

 Jakub Moc
 mailto:jakub@gentoo.org
 GPG signature: http://subkeys.pgp.net:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xCEBA3D9E
 Primary key fingerprint: D2D7 933C 9BA1 C95B 2C95  B30F 8717 D5FD CEBA 3D9E

 ... still no signature ;)

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 17:57:17 +0100 Jakub Moc <jakub@gentoo.org> wrote:
| alsa - this does not make most sense definitely, this horrible thing
| needs to die.

Why? On x86, alsa is the least broken sound system, and on x86, the
target for the default profiles is desktops, and most desktops have
soundcards.

| emboss - "Adds support for the European Molecular Biology Open
| Software Suite." WTF? Why are we abusing make.defaults for such stuff?

Because it makes sense. For any application which has IUSE="emboss",
chances are emboss should be enabled. There was a long discussion about
this on the -user list a while back where I ended up posting a
newbie-friendly explanation of the whole thing. Perhaps you could hunt
it down on marc or gmane and post a link here...

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (I can kill you with my brain)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Simon Stelling]

Doug Goldstein wrote:
> the USE defaults are a bit INSANE... We need to get rid of some of this
> crap...
> 
> 
> ./default-linux/x86/2005.0/make.defaults:USE="alsa apm arts avi berkdb
> bitmap-fo nts crypt cups eds emboss encode fortran foomaticdb gdbm gif
> gnome gpm gstreamer  gtk gtk2 imlib ipv6 jpeg kde libg++ libwww mad
> mikmod motif mp3 mpeg ncurses nls ogg oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib
> perl png python qt quicktime readline sdl spell ssl tcpd truetype
> truetype-fonts type1-fonts vorbis X xml2 xmms xv zlib"

What about discussing this with the x86 arch team instead of -dev? IMO it's 
pretty much their decision what their defaults look like.

-- 
Simon Stelling
Gentoo/AMD64 Operational Co-Lead
blubb@gentoo.org
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re[2]: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Jakub Moc]

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26.12.2005, 18:07:45, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:

> On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 17:57:17 +0100 Jakub Moc <jakub@gentoo.org> wrote:
> | alsa - this does not make most sense definitely, this horrible thing
> | needs to die.

> Why? On x86, alsa is the least broken sound system, and on x86, the
> target for the default profiles is desktops, and most desktops have
> soundcards.

Uh eh... I meant *arts*, no clue how I wrote alsa.


-- 

jakub

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Andrew Muraco]

Petteri Räty wrote:

>Bastiaan Visser wrote:
>  
>
>>On Monday 26 December 2005 09:33, Mike Frysinger wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>On Monday 26 December 2005 02:24, Doug Goldstein wrote:
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>well there is always USE enabling... (i.e. When I emerge x11-libs/qt,
>>>>it'll turn on the "qt" USE flag)
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>which we've already established quite clearly as something we wish to get
>>>rid of completely
>>>-mike
>>>      
>>>
>>aint it worth it to mention "-*" in the handbook ?
>>    
>>
>
>And then mentioning stuff like pam that almost everyone wants? There are
>also things that should be on by default.
>
>Regards,
>Petteri
>  
>
Actually, Pam is a pain for me and i always turn it off. But thats just 
my $.02, alot of the very specific use flags shouldn't be turned on by 
default. Which ones need to be removed is up to _a_lot_ of discussion.

-Tux
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Doug Goldstein]

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Simon Stelling wrote:
> Doug Goldstein wrote:
> 
>> the USE defaults are a bit INSANE... We need to get rid of some of this
>> crap...
>>
>>
>> ./default-linux/x86/2005.0/make.defaults:USE="alsa apm arts avi berkdb
>> bitmap-fo nts crypt cups eds emboss encode fortran foomaticdb gdbm gif
>> gnome gpm gstreamer  gtk gtk2 imlib ipv6 jpeg kde libg++ libwww mad
>> mikmod motif mp3 mpeg ncurses nls ogg oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib
>> perl png python qt quicktime readline sdl spell ssl tcpd truetype
>> truetype-fonts type1-fonts vorbis X xml2 xmms xv zlib"
> 
> 
> What about discussing this with the x86 arch team instead of -dev? IMO
> it's pretty much their decision what their defaults look like.
> 
Because looking at the CVS logs to who is commiting these changes to the
profile and then looking at the x86 ARCH team I can tell you that a lot
of the USE flags I disagree with weren't put there by the ARCH teams.

And sometimes developers just add stuff there without properly
discussing things, there's a few USE flags like that. So really the
proper forums was here so that all devs were aware.

-- 
Doug Goldstein <cardoe@gentoo.org>
http://dev.gentoo.org/~cardoe/

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Re: Re[2]: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Joe McCann]

On Mon, 2005-12-26 at 17:57 +0100, Jakub Moc wrote:

> eds - please, fix the ebuilds properly instead of throwing the thing on
> everyone. This has already caused numerous invalid bugs with people
> wondering why the heck portage wants to emerge gnome with USE="-gtk -gnome"
> 

How do you suggest the ebuilds be fixed properly? per ebuild use
defaults that don't exist? This is the 2nd time somebody has mentioned
fixing the ebuilds, without really backing it up with anything. Unless
y'all have something in mind, please stop using phrases like "fix your
ebuilds" to make it look like you have a point. I'm sorry for the time
you have spent with invalid bugs(and you are doing a good job since I've
never seen one..kudos), I know that is a drag and doesn't really help
anybody in the long run, but this argument is no different then the
argument for any other default flag. For the record, the eds flag was
added as a default flag because every 3rd gnome user would file bugs or
complain via forums because they installed gnome, found no
evolution-data-server integration, and then be bummed when they had to
recompile packages again. This whole thread seems to have come from a
misunderstanding of how use.defaults work and 20 min of boredom.

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Carsten Lohrke]

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On Monday 26 December 2005 19:36, Joe McCann wrote:

> This whole thread seems to have come from a
> misunderstanding of how use.defaults work and 20 min of boredom.

use.defaults are based on the idea that having an ebuild installed should 
activate the relevant use flag(s) behind the users back. This idea is plain 
wrong, but has nothing to do with Doug's Christmas day rant.


Carsten

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Carsten Lohrke]

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On Monday 26 December 2005 18:07, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> Because it makes sense. For any application which has IUSE="emboss",
> chances are emboss should be enabled. There was a long discussion about
> this on the -user list a while back where I ended up posting a
> newbie-friendly explanation of the whole thing. Perhaps you could hunt
> it down on marc or gmane and post a link here...

Probably you should have provided the link, because the question that comes to 
mind is, why this dependency is optional at all, when it should be enabled 
anyways!?


Carsten

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[gentoo-dev] Re: Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Duncan]

Jakub Moc posted <55309248.20051226185355@gentoo.org>, excerpted below, 
on Mon, 26 Dec 2005 18:53:55 +0100:

> 
> 26.12.2005, 18:07:45, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 17:57:17 +0100 Jakub Moc <jakub@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> | alsa - this does not make most sense definitely, this horrible thing
>> | needs to die.
> 
>> Why? On x86, alsa is the least broken sound system, and on x86, the
>> target for the default profiles is desktops, and most desktops have
>> soundcards.
> 
> Uh eh... I meant *arts*, no clue how I wrote alsa.

USE=arts is a great default, again, by the definition already given "for
packages that can optionally support arts, should it be enabled by default
or not".  Most of the arts-optional packages will be KDE.  KDE by default
should be arts-aware, at least in KDE 3.x.  4.x will be a different
matter, but with 3.x, while KDE /can/ run without arts, it's /designed/ to
run /with/ arts, so that's the entirely logical default.

Of course, there are packages such as xmms that don't have an direct
relationship to KDE save that they optionally support arts.  Great!  For
such packages there's this user-configurable file in /etc/portage called
package.use.  For those that don't want arts at all, simply set -arts in
make.conf and be done with it.  Meanwhile, USE=arts remains an entirely
logical default.

-- 
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 in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re[4]: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Jakub Moc]

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26.12.2005, 19:36:23, Joe McCann wrote:

> On Mon, 2005-12-26 at 17:57 +0100, Jakub Moc wrote:

>> eds - please, fix the ebuilds properly instead of throwing the thing on
>> everyone. This has already caused numerous invalid bugs with people
>> wondering why the heck portage wants to emerge gnome with USE="-gtk -gnome"
>> 

> For the record, the eds flag was added as a default flag because every 3rd
> gnome user would file bugs or complain via forums because they installed
> gnome, found no evolution-data-server integration, and then be bummed when
> they had to recompile packages again. This whole thread seems to have come
> from a misunderstanding of how use.defaults work and 20 min of boredom.

OK, so because every 3rd gnome user is not able to add the proper use flag
to make.conf, every non-gnome user is stuck with investigating and putting
-eds into make.conf to avoid pulling in gnome crap. Wonderful.

Yes, I am ranting, because this kind of use flags basically pulls in huge
number or unwanted dependencies; exactly the same thing with motif - would
someone explain why the heck do do we need this thing in make.defaults?

I don't think that this discussion will lead somewhere, so - anyone cares to
add a non-bloated x86 profile (basically, something like
profiles/hardened/x86/2.6 minus the hardened stuff) so that people who don't
want all this bloat can have a sane starting point?

-- 
Best regards,

 Jakub Moc
 mailto:jakub@gentoo.org
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 20:03:42 +0100 Carsten Lohrke <carlo@gentoo.org>
wrote:
| On Monday 26 December 2005 18:07, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
| > Because it makes sense. For any application which has IUSE="emboss",
| > chances are emboss should be enabled. There was a long discussion
| > about this on the -user list a while back where I ended up posting a
| > newbie-friendly explanation of the whole thing. Perhaps you could
| > hunt it down on marc or gmane and post a link here...
| 
| Probably you should have provided the link, because the question that
| comes to mind is, why this dependency is optional at all, when it
| should be enabled anyways!?

Because there are legitimate reasons for turning it off. They're just
significantly less likely to occur than the reasons for wanting it
turned on.

And of course, if you don't use any apps that have IUSE="emboss", the
default value of the USE flag is entirely irrelevant to you.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (I can kill you with my brain)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: Re[4]: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Joe McCann]

On Mon, 2005-12-26 at 20:24 +0100, Jakub Moc wrote:
> 26.12.2005, 19:36:23, Joe McCann wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 2005-12-26 at 17:57 +0100, Jakub Moc wrote:
> 
> >> eds - please, fix the ebuilds properly instead of throwing the thing on
> >> everyone. This has already caused numerous invalid bugs with people
> >> wondering why the heck portage wants to emerge gnome with USE="-gtk -gnome"
> >> 
> 
> > For the record, the eds flag was added as a default flag because every 3rd
> > gnome user would file bugs or complain via forums because they installed
> > gnome, found no evolution-data-server integration, and then be bummed when
> > they had to recompile packages again. This whole thread seems to have come
> > from a misunderstanding of how use.defaults work and 20 min of boredom.
> 
> OK, so because every 3rd gnome user is not able to add the proper use flag
> to make.conf, every non-gnome user is stuck with investigating and putting
> -eds into make.conf to avoid pulling in gnome crap. Wonderful.
> 
> Yes, I am ranting, because this kind of use flags basically pulls in huge
> number or unwanted dependencies; exactly the same thing with motif - would
> someone explain why the heck do do we need this thing in make.defaults?
> 

I can say the same thing for people who are to lazy to add the proper
-use flag(when it is much more obvious that deps you don't want are
being pulled in compared to support you do want not being compiled in).
Unless this is going to go beyond ranting, there isn't much point from
either side.

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Stephen P. Becker]

>>OK, so because every 3rd gnome user is not able to add the proper use flag
>>to make.conf, every non-gnome user is stuck with investigating and putting
>>-eds into make.conf to avoid pulling in gnome crap. Wonderful.
>>
>>Yes, I am ranting, because this kind of use flags basically pulls in huge
>>number or unwanted dependencies; exactly the same thing with motif - would
>>someone explain why the heck do do we need this thing in make.defaults?
>>
> 
> 
> I can say the same thing for people who are to lazy to add the proper
> -use flag(when it is much more obvious that deps you don't want are
> being pulled in compared to support you do want not being compiled in).
> Unless this is going to go beyond ranting, there isn't much point from
> either side.

In this case, you are wrong.  These USE flags are not doing what they 
are intended to do because of eds.  If a user explicitly sets -gtk 
-gnome, and gnome *still* is pulled in because of eds in the default 
profile, this is broken behavior.  I also suspect that "every 3rd gnome 
user" is a minority compared to the number of folks who are affected by 
forcing eds.

-Steve
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Diego 'Flameeyes' Pettenò]

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On Monday 26 December 2005 20:24, Jakub Moc wrote:
> exactly the same thing with motif - would
> someone explain why the heck do do we need this thing in make.defaults?
Because people emerges xpdf waiting for xpdf binary and they won't find it 
with -motif, as it requires motif integration, but I think more people would 
just have xpdf installed because of cups or older kpdf/gpdf versions.
Now that poppler is there, the problem might be mitigated, in the future, tho, 
as cups still uses xpdf and not poppler yet.

-- 
Diego "Flameeyes" Pettenò - http://dev.gentoo.org/~flameeyes/
Gentoo/ALT lead, Gentoo/FreeBSD, Video, AMD64, Sound, PAM, KDE

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Re[2]: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Jakub Moc]

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26.12.2005, 22:21:14, Diego 'Flameeyes' Petteno wrote:

> On Monday 26 December 2005 20:24, Jakub Moc wrote:
>> exactly the same thing with motif - would
>> someone explain why the heck do do we need this thing in make.defaults?
> Because people emerges xpdf waiting for xpdf binary and they won't find it 
> with -motif, as it requires motif integration

Eeek?! This is totally broken behaviour...

> , but I think more people would
> just have xpdf installed because of cups or older kpdf/gpdf versions.
> Now that poppler is there, the problem might be mitigated, in the future, tho,
> as cups still uses xpdf and not poppler yet.

That would be really nice...


-- 
Best regards,

 Jakub Moc
 mailto:jakub@gentoo.org
 GPG signature: http://subkeys.pgp.net:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xCEBA3D9E
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 ... still no signature ;)

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Re: Re[2]: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Lares Moreau]

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On Mon, 2005-12-26 at 12:36 -0600, Joe McCann wrote:
> 
> For the record, the eds flag was
> added as a default flag because every 3rd gnome user would file bugs or
> complain via forums because they installed gnome, found no
> evolution-data-server integration, and then be bummed when they had to
> recompile packages again. This whole thread seems to have come from a
> misunderstanding of how use.defaults work and 20 min of boredom.
> 

I'm relatively ignorant of USE Flag intricacies, so please forgive me if
things don't 'fit'.

Is it feasible and or useful to have a 'meta-flag' that that enables all
the 'necessary' USE flags for a given group of packages?  So something
like USE='meta-<flagname>'. 
This has the distinction of being a meta-flag, and as such nothing
really gets turned on 'behind the users back', advanced users can look
into it and see what is being enabled by it and USE='-flag' for the
flags the users doesn't need/want, and expert users would just not use
it. This way meta packages like KDE and Gnome can have their own
meta-flag to do what the need with.

It also seems to me that more things will need to 'just work' as our
user-base becomes larger and, on average, less advanced. We could amend
the desktop guide to include something like USE='meta-gnome' to the
gnome section. And similar to other meta-flags.

This may add an unnecessary level of complexity to the use flag system,
but also may be very useful. 

-- 
Lares Moreau <lares.moreau@gmail.com>  | LRU: 400755 http://counter.li.org
lares/irc.freenode.net                 |
Gentoo x86 Arch Tester                 |               ::0 Alberta, Canada
Public Key: 0D46BB6E @ subkeys.pgp.net |          Encrypted Mail Preferred
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 15:19:47 -0700 Lares Moreau
<lares.moreau@gmail.com> wrote:
| Is it feasible and or useful to have a 'meta-flag' that that enables
| all the 'necessary' USE flags for a given group of packages?  So
| something like USE='meta-<flagname>'. 

USE flags are for things that're optional, not things that are
necessary, so your request doesn't make sense.

If you mean "to avoid that icky built_with_use error", we're getting
foo[bar] deps soon anyway, so it's better to avoid polluting the tree
with even more nastiness.

Your other option... would be to revive GLEP 29. Be warned, however,
that in the form in which I left it, GLEP 29 doesn't solve many of the
problems that developers would expect a "USE flag grouping" GLEP to
solve. In particular, it doesn't provide anything that would help with
USE flag editing tools.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (I can kill you with my brain)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Andrew Muraco]

Lares Moreau wrote:

>On Mon, 2005-12-26 at 12:36 -0600, Joe McCann wrote:
>  
>
>>For the record, the eds flag was
>>added as a default flag because every 3rd gnome user would file bugs or
>>complain via forums because they installed gnome, found no
>>evolution-data-server integration, and then be bummed when they had to
>>recompile packages again. This whole thread seems to have come from a
>>misunderstanding of how use.defaults work and 20 min of boredom.
>>    
>>
>I'm relatively ignorant of USE Flag intricacies, so please forgive me if
>things don't 'fit'.
>
>Is it feasible and or useful to have a 'meta-flag' that that enables all
>the 'necessary' USE flags for a given group of packages?  So something
>like USE='meta-<flagname>'. 
>This has the distinction of being a meta-flag, and as such nothing
>really gets turned on 'behind the users back', advanced users can look
>into it and see what is being enabled by it and USE='-flag' for the
>flags the users doesn't need/want, and expert users would just not use
>it. This way meta packages like KDE and Gnome can have their own
>meta-flag to do what the need with.
>
>It also seems to me that more things will need to 'just work' as our
>user-base becomes larger and, on average, less advanced. We could amend
>the desktop guide to include something like USE='meta-gnome' to the
>gnome section. And similar to other meta-flags.
>
>This may add an unnecessary level of complexity to the use flag system,
>but also may be very useful. 
>  
>

If I remember right theres a GLEP (#29) that purposes to do something 
very similar (USE Groups I think it was called), but I believe its 
withdrawn.

Regards,
Andrew
Tux
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Dale]

Lares Moreau wrote:

>
>I'm relatively ignorant of USE Flag intricacies, so please forgive me if
>things don't 'fit'.
>  
>


Ditto for me.  I have a question or two.  I have servers that have no 
GUI at all.  I just use them to run folding on.  Would I benefit from 
puting in USE="-*" in my USE line?  I have been reading this thread and 
am learning a bit about how this works.  It seems that by default Gentoo 
users do not have as much control as one would think.  At least not 
until you learn how to override the defaults.  That may be good for a 
noobie though.  I'm not complaining, just saying that some need the 
extra hand at first and then as you mature you learn how to override the 
defaults.  I think I just did that by the way.  Still to chicken to try 
it though.  :\  I need more "guruness" in me first.  LOL

Keep up the good work.  Oh, answer to the questions would be nice too.  :-)

Dale
:-)


-- 
To err is human, I'm most certainly human.

I have four rigs:

1:  Home built; Abit NF7 ver 2.0 w/ AMD 2500+ CPU, 1GB of ram and right now two 80GB hard drives.  Named Smoker
2:  Home built; Iwill KK266-R w/ AMD 1GHz CPU, 256MBs of ram and a 4GB drive.  Named Swifty
3:  Home built; Gigabyte GA-71XE4 w/ 800MHz CPU, 224MBs of ram and a 2.5GB drive.  Named Pokey
4:  Compaq Proliant 6000 Server w/ Quad 200MHz CPUs, 128MBs of ram and a 4.3GB SCSI drive.  Named Putput

All run Gentoo Linux, all run folding. #1 is my desktop, 2, 3, and 4 are set up as servers.  

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Chandler Carruth]

Lares Moreau wrote:

>On Mon, 2005-12-26 at 12:36 -0600, Joe McCann wrote:
>  
>
>>For the record, the eds flag was
>>added as a default flag because every 3rd gnome user would file bugs or
>>complain via forums because they installed gnome, found no
>>evolution-data-server integration, and then be bummed when they had to
>>recompile packages again. This whole thread seems to have come from a
>>misunderstanding of how use.defaults work and 20 min of boredom.
>>
>>    
>>
>
>I'm relatively ignorant of USE Flag intricacies, so please forgive me if
>things don't 'fit'.
>
>Is it feasible and or useful to have a 'meta-flag' that that enables all
>the 'necessary' USE flags for a given group of packages?  So something
>like USE='meta-<flagname>'. 
>This has the distinction of being a meta-flag, and as such nothing
>really gets turned on 'behind the users back', advanced users can look
>into it and see what is being enabled by it and USE='-flag' for the
>flags the users doesn't need/want, and expert users would just not use
>it. This way meta packages like KDE and Gnome can have their own
>meta-flag to do what the need with.
>
>It also seems to me that more things will need to 'just work' as our
>user-base becomes larger and, on average, less advanced. We could amend
>the desktop guide to include something like USE='meta-gnome' to the
>gnome section. And similar to other meta-flags.
>
>This may add an unnecessary level of complexity to the use flag system,
>but also may be very useful. 
>
>  
>
It occurs to me that this could be (to an extent) accomplished by having
a few more "specialized" subprofiles for x86: base, desktop, gnome, and kde.

base - as the name implies, a _basic_ starting point... very similar to
server profiles, etc. veeery minimal.
desktop - almost identical to the current USE flags -- what Joe Q. User
"should" have to be safe, and have programs function as expected.
gnome / kde - slight specializations of the above to tailor the use
flags for one desktop environ or the other..

Problems?
1) heavier usage and depth of the profile, making where things come in
more and more obscure.
2) could lead to proliferation of environment tailored "desktop"
derivatives. (xfce, fluxbox, the list could go on) This may not be a
problem as many distros have successfully divided between KDE and Gnome,
and the base / desktop profiles would allow users ways to customize, as
always.
3) there is _no_ functionality added by any of this, only
"user-friendliness" after a fashion, and as such, perhaps it should all
be chucked in favor of having users competently declare their own global
USE flags during the install, however I doubt that'll get very far. *shrug*

I'm certain there are more/bigger problems with this than I'm seeing,
but as an alternative to USE-flag grouping/meta structure/etc, i thought
i'd toss out the very flexible profile system we already have available
(afaik). =] Profiles are I think underused, but there may well be _good_
reasons for that, so just my 2cents.

-Chandler Carruth, yet another gentoo user...
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Brian Harring]

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On Mon, Dec 26, 2005 at 11:28:17PM -0500, Chandler Carruth wrote:
> It occurs to me that this could be (to an extent) accomplished by having
> a few more "specialized" subprofiles for x86: base, desktop, gnome, and kde.
> 
> base - as the name implies, a _basic_ starting point... very similar to
> server profiles, etc. veeery minimal.
> desktop - almost identical to the current USE flags -- what Joe Q. User
> "should" have to be safe, and have programs function as expected.
> gnome / kde - slight specializations of the above to tailor the use
> flags for one desktop environ or the other..
> 
> Problems?
> 1) heavier usage and depth of the profile, making where things come in
> more and more obscure.
> 2) could lead to proliferation of environment tailored "desktop"
> derivatives. (xfce, fluxbox, the list could go on) This may not be a
> problem as many distros have successfully divided between KDE and Gnome,
> and the base / desktop profiles would allow users ways to customize, as
> always.
> 3) there is _no_ functionality added by any of this, only
> "user-friendliness" after a fashion, and as such, perhaps it should all
> be chucked in favor of having users competently declare their own global
> USE flags during the install, however I doubt that'll get very far. *shrug*

4) need for the ability to inherit multiple parent profiles.

Otherwise, x86 desktop profile is not guranteed in anyway to reflect 
sparc desktop profile (yes, somewhat the case now).

A gnome desktop profile would make sense imo, but from a work 
standpoint is totally dependant on ability to inherit multiple 
parents.

~harring

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Chandler Carruth]

Brian Harring wrote:

>On Mon, Dec 26, 2005 at 11:28:17PM -0500, Chandler Carruth wrote:
>  
>
>>It occurs to me that this could be (to an extent) accomplished by having
>>a few more "specialized" subprofiles for x86: base, desktop, gnome, and kde.
>>
>>base - as the name implies, a _basic_ starting point... very similar to
>>server profiles, etc. veeery minimal.
>>desktop - almost identical to the current USE flags -- what Joe Q. User
>>"should" have to be safe, and have programs function as expected.
>>gnome / kde - slight specializations of the above to tailor the use
>>flags for one desktop environ or the other..
>>
>>Problems?
>>1) heavier usage and depth of the profile, making where things come in
>>more and more obscure.
>>2) could lead to proliferation of environment tailored "desktop"
>>derivatives. (xfce, fluxbox, the list could go on) This may not be a
>>problem as many distros have successfully divided between KDE and Gnome,
>>and the base / desktop profiles would allow users ways to customize, as
>>always.
>>3) there is _no_ functionality added by any of this, only
>>"user-friendliness" after a fashion, and as such, perhaps it should all
>>be chucked in favor of having users competently declare their own global
>>USE flags during the install, however I doubt that'll get very far. *shrug*
>>    
>>
>
>4) need for the ability to inherit multiple parent profiles.
>
>Otherwise, x86 desktop profile is not guranteed in anyway to reflect 
>sparc desktop profile (yes, somewhat the case now).
>
>A gnome desktop profile would make sense imo, but from a work 
>standpoint is totally dependant on ability to inherit multiple 
>parents.
>
>~harring
>  
>
How close is that ability to portage? Is there interest/room for
help/work towards it? I would like to see a more sensible approach to
establishing default settings (USE flags not the only thing here). Would
help the confusion, and end some of the arts/no-arts, eds/no-eds madness.

Would also aid end users in beginning to customize their system rather
than simply using a default setup.

What about the other 3 problems I myself raised?

-Chandler Carruth
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Brian Harring]

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On Tue, Dec 27, 2005 at 12:10:04AM -0500, Chandler Carruth wrote:
> Brian Harring wrote:
> 
> >On Mon, Dec 26, 2005 at 11:28:17PM -0500, Chandler Carruth wrote:
> >>3) there is _no_ functionality added by any of this, only
> >>"user-friendliness" after a fashion, and as such, perhaps it should all
> >>be chucked in favor of having users competently declare their own global
> >>USE flags during the install, however I doubt that'll get very far. *shrug*

You're ignoring the ability to specify additions to the system set; 
use flags aren't going to help there.


> >4) need for the ability to inherit multiple parent profiles.
> >
> >Otherwise, x86 desktop profile is not guranteed in anyway to reflect 
> >sparc desktop profile (yes, somewhat the case now).
> >
> >A gnome desktop profile would make sense imo, but from a work 
> >standpoint is totally dependant on ability to inherit multiple 
> >parents.
> >
> How close is that ability to portage? Is there interest/room for
> help/work towards it?

30 minute patch if people want it (line 999 of portage.py from trunk 
is the area of modification required).

Due to current code, would need to either educate users, or come up 
with some way to make existing code puke when working with N parents- 
right now the code automatically ignores any other entries in the 
parent file (badddddddd design choice).


> I would like to see a more sensible approach to
> establishing default settings (USE flags not the only thing here).

IUSE defaults; specifying the use defaults within the ebuild itself 
(search the -dev archives for it, spanky brought it to the ml iirc).

IUSE defaults is not a 30 minute patch.

~harring

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Olivier Fisette]

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On Monday, 26 December 2005 11:57 am, Jakub Moc wrote:
> emboss - "Adds support for the European Molecular Biology Open Software
> Suite." WTF? Why are we abusing make.defaults for such stuff?

Quote from bug #82428:

----
The reason why I think "emboss" should be enabled by default is that the 
vast majority of users of packages such as aaindex, CUTG, PRINTS, Prosite, 
Rebase and TransFac want/expect EMBOSS support for these packages. (These
are the only packages with optional EMBOSS support.) For example, although
a minority of users have custom scripts to query the Prosite database, 
most will use the EMBOSS program "patmatmotifs" to interface with it, so 
having this program available when Prosite is installed is a sensible 
default.
----

The issue of Stupid/INSANE/crap/crazy/WTF/abusing default USE flags has been 
brought to this list (and others) before. If you think enabling a certain USE 
flag is not a good default, explain why, keeping in mind that we cannot 
enable or disable default USE flags per ebuild, that the default profiles are 
targeted at desktop users, and that packages should always work correctly 
out-of-the-box, even if that means pulling in lots of dependencies. If you 
would like to have a smaller set of default USE flags for a server or a 
minimal desktop system, then write the corresponding profile and propose it 
to the relevant arch teams.

Regards,

-- 
Olivier Fisette (ribosome)
Gentoo Linux Developer
Scientific applications, Developer relations

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Stupid USE defaults that need cleaning

[Chris Gianelloni]

OK.  Here is my take on profiles and USE.

First of all, the "default-linux/$arch/$relver" profiles will *always*
match what we use to build GRP for the releases.  There's no discussion
here, as this will not be changed.  Adding additional sub-profiles
really is a stupid idea and a waste of developer time.  If a user cannot
put -flag into make.conf, why should we really have to cater to this
level of ignorance?  Point them to the documentation on USE flags and be
done with it.  I mean no offense to anyone, but wasting our limited
development time maintaining n profiles that are all similar is rather
pointless.  If you look at what has been done with profiles recently, we
have been working to make the default-linux/$arch profiles very
minimal/generic, allowing people to create their own profiles that
inherit these minimal profiles.  I don't really think we should spend
the time creating profiles for each of the possible setups our users
could want.  There is a single "desktop" profile right now.  It is the
default profile for each release version.  Making a "Gnome" or "KDE"
profile just opens us up to countless bugs from users wanting *their*
defaults into a profile.  What we end up with is 20 "desktop" profiles
for each architecture and wasting a ton of time.  I would much rather
tell users to read the documentation and have them learn how to maintain
their systems, than try to cater to every whim of every user, since
everyone will want something different.  Perhaps allowing for longer USE
descriptions would work?

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering - Strategic Lead
x86 Architecture Team
Games - Developer
Gentoo Linux

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