[gentoo-user] Re: What xorg pkgs needed for X to work

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> On Friday 15 January 2010 20:43:32 Harry Putnam wrote:
> > [Please excuse if this is a double whammy... it appears not to have
> > made it to the mail/news server]
> > 
> > Sorry for the awkwardly phrased subject... but couldn't think of
> > anything better.
> > 
> > I'm rebuilding my home desktop with a full reinstall
> > 
> > So far haven't gotten to getting X working... but did notice that when
> > I test what all gets installed with:
> > 
> >   emerge -vp xfce4-meta
> > 
> > I notice that xorg-x11 is not amongst the... dependencies.
> > 
> > xorg-server is absent as well, but I seem to recall a more basic xorg
> > pkgs being involved.  Maybe something like xorg-base... or whatever.
> > 
> > Apparently something has happened with naming of pkgs or something,
> > that I haven't kept up with.
> > 
> > But can a user really get use out of xfce4-meta with no xorg-server?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> This is how X11 works. xfce does not need a full blown xserver on the *local* 
> machine, it simply needs X libs to function. The X libs in turn will talk to 
> the xserver, which does not have to be on the local machine.
> 
> Parallel situation: You do not need X and a browser on a machine running a web 
> server, as the pages served are not necessarily viewed on the machine hosting 
> apache.

Ahh yes... I see you point now.

> To get X you can either;
> 
> merge xorg-x11 (this is the "meta" package you didn't know the name of) or
> put "X" in USE
> 
> Note carefully that this is not a silly situation, it works this way by 
> design.

Well that is kind of the kicker... I do have X in use flags.  In fact posting
all I have in /etc/make.conf below:

 USE="X acpi alsa apache2 branding cscope dbus emacs ffmpeg gif hal
      jpeg lock logrotate mbox mysql samba sasl session svg vim-pager
      vim-with-x png pdf session startup-notification subversion thunar
      tiff exif win32codecs Xaw3d

 ## FOR Xfce4 => branding dbus hal lock session startup-notification thunar
 ## They are added above

      -bluetooth -crypt -eds -emboss  -evo -gnome -gstreamer -imap
      -ipv6 -kde -ldap -mad -maildir -mikmod -minimal -qt3 -qt3support
      -qt4  -sdl -xscreensaver"

As you see, it is the very first USE flag.
Maybe something the the negative list is making a problem...?

But its not a major obstacle.. of course, my real aim is to get X going with
Xfce4 and I'm pretty sure I can get that done.

Thanks for the input.