On 20-04-2007 15:30:55 +0200, Michael Haubenwallner wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> In a profile's default USE flags I'd prefer to see only those enabled,
> that do not pull in more dependencies (to download) then found in
> 'system' anyway.
> 
> Samples of what I mean:
> 'python': We cannot do anything without python: keep it enabled.

<rant>
Eh what?  It's just a frikkin USE-flag, and I'd like to avoid having as
much as python as I can on my systems!
</rant>

> 'zlib': Even if zlib is not USEd, it is part of 'system': keep enabled.
> 'berkdb': If not USEd, sys-libs/db is not needed: disable by default.
> 'unicode': does not pull in anything, but IMO is state of the art ?
> 
> For 'fortran', this pulls in dev-libs/gmp and dev-libs/mpfr, so I'd like
> to see it disabled by default.

I just got scared by the "sane defaults" message from the base profile.
But I guess since I don't do this on Solaris and Darwin either, that it
is also sane not to have it on by default.

> As a result, I'd say to have these use flags (on linux) as default:
> ncurses:   required by bash
> python:    required by portage
> ssl:       required by openssh (pulled in by virtual/ssh on linux)
> readline:  required by baselayoyt-prefix (why?)
> zlib:      required by openssh
> unicode:   nice to have without additional dependencies
> more ?

What does "required" mean?  If it's required, it shouldn't be an
optional USE-flag.  I think you confuse dependencies with extra features
here.

I dropped berkdb in favour of ssl.  I'm not sure if that is good, as
you might want a python with some sort of database backend compiled in,
but I'm not sure.


-- 
Fabian Groffen
Gentoo on a different level

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