On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 16:29:39 +0100 (WEST) Jorge Almeida
<jalmeida@math.ist.utl.pt> wrote:
| I would like to know how the current USE variables are set.
| I know that "emerge --info" displays a list of all of them, but it
| doesn't discriminate where they come from. I couldn't find clear
| documentation about it, but of course I may have missed something. 
| In the same line, I find /etc/make.profile/make.defaults _very
| strange_. "perl"? Sure. "fortran"? Well, who knows... But "emboss"?!
| (In case it doesn't ring a bell immediately: emboss - Adds support for
| the European Molecular Biology Open Software Suite)
| Could this be a joke?

Uh, no. USE flags do not control whether packages get installed. They
control whether something which has **optional** support will use it.
So, for things with optional emboss support, by default the emboss
support will be enabled. Which makes sense, because if you're
installing science apps, you'll probably want it, and if you're not
installing science apps you'll never see it anyway.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Vim, Shell tools, Fluxbox, Cron)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm