Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo gets as bad SuSE: Circular dependencies [WAS: Thank you Gentoo devs]

["Bo Ørsted Andresen" <bo.andresen@zlin.dk>]

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On Wednesday 16 May 2007 17:47:37 Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> > > Thank you for producing lots of circular dependencies
> > > (ie. in the Xserver), which make maintenance complicated.
> >
> > Lots? If you'd posted this yesterday, I would have been able to recall
> > the last time I was hit with one.
>
> At least several. I didn't find an good solution for checking
> the whole tree yet, so I yet know some. Good candidates are
> where PDEPENDs occour. For example the Xserver.

*What* are you talking about? PDEPENDs are packages that should be emerged 
*after* the package in question. That A depends on B to be emerged *after* A 
and B depends on A to be emerged *before* B does not produce a circular 
dependency!

The PDEPEND of xorg-server is a convenience for the user to only need to set 
VIDEO_CARDS and INPUT_DEVICES (or stick with the defaults) and have 
xorg-server pull in only the requested drivers after itself.

> If you want some package which pulls in an complete Xserver installation
> *and* drivers (based on certain useflags), why not just an virtual
> package ?

virtuals are similar to meta packages (if you look at their contents) with one 
very important difference.

virtuals provide a minimal functionality that other packages can depend on 
without caring about what provides it. meta packages are a convenience to the 
users that pulls in a bunch of packages and hence nothing is allowed to 
depend on them.

-- 
Bo Andresen

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