On Sunday 21 Apr 2013 11:28:56 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Apr 2013 20:15:49 -0500, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> > So normal systems require PA. That *you* perhaps don't require PA is
> > another thing altogether.
> 
> I think the important point from the original post, which appears to have
> been lost, is that removing PA is a trivial (by Gentoo standards) task.
> Negate one USE flag and update world and the system just keeps working
> without PA. I discovered the opposite, that enabling it is just as easy.
> 
> That means it does really matter whether it is enabled or not in the
> default profiles, because anyone running a completely default system is
> wasting their time using Gentoo.
> 
> On for desktops 

I'm running 'default/linux/amd64/13.0/desktop' on this box and the pulseaudio 
USE flag is inactive as far as portage is concerned.  None of my packages are 
bringing in pulseaudio either:

~ $ euse -I pulseaudio
global use flags (searching: pulseaudio)
************************************************************
[-      ] pulseaudio - Adds support for PulseAudio sound server

Installed packages matching this USE flag: 
app-accessibility/espeak-1.45.04
app-accessibility/speech-dispatcher-0.7.1-r1
kde-base/kmix-4.10.1-r1
kde-base/phonon-kde-4.10.1
media-libs/libao-1.1.0-r1
media-libs/libsdl-1.2.15-r2
media-libs/phonon-4.6.0-r1
media-plugins/gst-plugins-meta-0.10-r8
media-sound/mpg123-1.14.4
media-video/ffmpeg-0.10.7
media-video/mplayer-1.1-r1
media-video/vlc-2.0.5
net-libs/ptlib-2.10.10
net-misc/freerdp-1.1.0_pre20121004-r1
net-voip/ekiga-4.0.0-r1
www-client/chromium-26.0.1410.43

local use flags (searching: pulseaudio)
************************************************************
no matching entries found

I guess that the gnome/kde make.profiles may include this USE flag in their 
defaults?


> and off for servers and other minimal profiles seems
> eminently sensible and all of this argument makes bike-shedding seem like
> important stuff.

-- 
Regards,
Mick