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From: "Walter Dnes" <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 23:28:01 -0500
To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: X USE flag - what does it do?
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On Mon, Jan 30, 2006 at 10:54:27PM +0000, Neil Bothwick wrote

> No, it means the flag setting changed since the last install. The newer
> portage also has a % to show the flag has been added to the ebuild since
> the last install.
> 
> You are thinking of use.defaults, which appear to have been phased out
> for the very latest portage, judging by the number of extra packages with
> -flag* that appeared in emerge --newuse world after updating portage. I
> had no idea so many of my USE flags had been set by use.defaults rather
> than the profile.

  I found out... the hard way... with ipv6 quite some time ago.  Note
the first entry in my USE variable...

USE="-* 3dnow X a52 aac alsa bzip2 cdr dga dio divx4linux dri dvd dvdr dvdread encode exif ffmpeg flac fortran gb gif gtk2 imlib jpeg maildir mikmod mime mmap mmx mng mp3 mpeg ncurses nptl nptlonly nsplugin offensive ogg opengl plotutils png posix quicktime readline sdl sharedmem slang sockets sse theora threads tiff truetype vcd vorbis win32codecs wmf xpm xv zlib"

  Gentoo is about control, and I want full control over the optional
stuff.  The only booby-trap I ran into is that I have to include...

app-text/xpdf motif

...in /etc/portage/package.use.  xpdf builds just the libs, *BUT NO XPDF
EXECUTABLE*, if you don't have the "motif" flag somewhere.  Sometimes,
you have no choice, but to invoke package.use, because different apps
function best in your environment with a different setting.  E.g...

  - with X support compiled in, and DISPLAY set, mc sits and spins its
    wheels for several seconds when launched in a real text console.
    But sdl and various other apps don't do what I want them to do if
    not built with X support.

  - building all apps with the "static" flag is not normally practical.
    However, you want busybox to run standalone as a rescue facility,
    even if some libs are screwed up.  It makes sense, to build busybox
    with "static".  I argue that it's foolhardy not to do so.

  If I find that most apps need a flag (e.g. "X") I enable it generally
in /etc/make.conf, and disable it in /etc/portage/package.use for the
few packages that don't like it.  If a flag is required for only 1 or 2
apps, I go the other way.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> In linux /sbin/init is Job #1
My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca
-- 
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