hi James,

Where can I read up on the flags in some detail?

you can read it online at:

http://www.gentoo.org/dyn/use-index.xml

this page lists the global USE flags and the local USE flags.

you can also read information about USE flags using the program "equery" (which, by the way, is in the gentoolkit package :P):

$ equery u python

it lists the USE flags of that package with a description, and if you have it enabled or not for that package.

if you want to go a bit further, you can read the ebuild file (http://sources.gentoo.org/viewcvs.py/gentoo-x86/dev-lang/python/python-2.6.2-r1.ebuild?view=markup) and see what it does when the USE flag "threads" is enabled. the python ebuild only passes that information to the Python configure script (--with-threads), so you should read in Python documentation why threads support is so important (or not).

Is this a good idea or bad idea to leave the "-threads" flag unset
in rebuilding python or any other package on this mostly iptables firewall?

according to the "Local USE flags" webpage:
python | threads: Enable threading support (DON'T DISABLE THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING)

it's better to keep it enabled =)

see you,

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 11:41 AM, James <wireless@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
Crístian Viana <cristiandeives <at> gmail.com> writes:


> Ebuils that need xml support don't have a USE flag for it.  Only those where
it's optional.

> python has optional XML support, but gentoolkit needs that feature.--



OK I got the xml flag issue resolved, but what about the "threads" flag"?


From my original post:


USE="-* -nls mmx hardened  ncurses ssl crypt berkdb tcpd pam perl pcre \
python readline zlib bzip2 nptl nptlonly syslog"

so nptl and nptlonly flags are set. -* means most other flags are unset.


To rebuild python, it want the xml flag set for gentoolkit (got it).

But also it shows "-threads" flag as not set.

dev-lang/python-2.6.2-r1  USE="berkdb ncurses readline ssl
-build -doc -examples -gdbm* -ipv6* -sqlite -threads* -tk -ucs2 -wininst -xml*"


Is this a good idea or bad idea to leave the "-threads" flag unset
in rebuilding python or any other package on this mostly iptables firewall?
(even though nptl and nptlonly are set) ????


Where can I read up on the flags in some detail?



James









--
Crístian Deives dos Santos Viana [aka CD1]