From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1N2X08-0007H1-Lf for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:21:16 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id B8BA8E0ABF; Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:21:15 +0000 (UTC) Received: from blingymail-a1.g.dreamhost.com (caibbdcaaaaf.dreamhost.com [208.113.200.5]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 96B16E0ABF for ; Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:21:15 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (c-75-69-71-37.hsd1.vt.comcast.net [75.69.71.37]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by blingymail-a1.g.dreamhost.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8C59D5CC9D for ; Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:21:14 -0700 (PDT) To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME References: <200910241542.17701.reavertm@gmail.com> <4AE6012C.6010307@gentoo.org> <200910262140.17777.reavertm@gmail.com> From: Josh Sled Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:21:18 -0400 In-Reply-To: <200910262140.17777.reavertm@gmail.com> (Maciej Mrozowski's message of "Mon\, 26 Oct 2009 21\:40\:17 +0100") Message-ID: <87iqe126nl.fsf@phoenix.asynchronous.org> User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.3 (gnu/linux) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="=-=-="; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature" X-Archives-Salt: cd6fd192-01ef-4b85-a75f-6180c21aa92f X-Archives-Hash: 149f05375c32a6d9f53654f820c478e4 --=-=-= Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Maciej Mrozowski writes: > And I fail to see *any* point in forcing users to learn Gentoo internals = (sic!=20 > like USE flags). What else? Ebuild syntax so that they're able to get to = know=20 > what particular global USE flag is responsible for, when someone forgot (= or=20 > decided not to) describe it in metadata.xml even when semantics is differ= ent? > Maybe I sound too harsh here, but that's because I'm not ideologist - I'm= =20 > practical man. If the point of the distribution is =E2=80=93 like some other distros =E2= =80=93 to have a high-functioning, high-polish, well-integrated system and desktop with a minimal amount of end-user knowledge, then, yes, the goal should be for end-users to not need to know about such things. But profiles, make.conf, USE flags (especially!), elog, &c. =E2=80=A6 these things are not "internals", but instead the interface the package manager presents to its user. They are the "language" the user is expected to speak in to interact with her system. The trade off for doing this is more and finer-grained control over the system, and the reason people choose Gentoo. Even ebuilds themselves are (usually) sufficiently non-magical that I think they could qualify in some circumstances, though that quickly starts to get into eclasses, PM behavior and real "internals". =2D-=20 ...jsled http://asynchronous.org/ - a=3Djsled; b=3Dasynchronous.org; echo ${a}@${b} --=-=-= Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.11 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkrmEs4ACgkQXze2dBAuga3xjgCcCUnUC81cpuOt5uiORmjeSMIw OSkAnjzNoUXa2exx/Qi7Jkphd9Kk3D3I =1ANj -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --=-=-=--