Re: [gentoo-dev] REQUIRED_USE, global USE flags, user-friendliness...

[james]

On 01/28/2017 08:27 PM, Walter Dnes wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 02:57:00PM -0500, james wrote
>>
>> Exactly:: simplify the flags, profiles and associated constructs down to
>> the bare bones. Even embedded (arm/mips/etc) builds could benefit from a
>> really minimized gentoo as a starting point. Freedom to build and fork
>> Gentoo, per GLEP 70 is a wonderful idea, whose time has arrived. That
>> would set the stage for quickly building highly specific gentoo installs
>> (VMs, Containers, Clusters or unikernel); all via a 'recipe' from the
>> minimal core-sed, which  could then take a variety of forms, such as
>> bare-metal builds vi IPMI, ipxe, or more traditional formularies like
>> chef, puppet, ansible as well as a myriad of other possibilities.
>>
>>
>> All of the traditional gentoo installs, such as the handbook, would
>> benefit from simplification  and the natural clarity that simplification
>> brings. Builds of things like simple standard gentoo-cluster-CI.
>> Nothing would preclude the adventuresome from building up a
>> traditional, highly customized install, for a specific needs such as
>> currently is the (handbook) practice. But additional gentoo installs
>> that are quick, streamlined and soot a specific itch.
>
>   A possible starting point...
>
> * Start with a basic text-mode install, with minimal USE flags
>   USE="-* foo bar etc..."
>
> * Specialized profiles could be generated by a 3-step process
>   1) Append any required profile-specific additional USE flags
>   2) Necessary profile-specific apps and/or libraries could be listed in
>      sets in /etc/portage/sets
>   3) emerge --changed-use --deep --update @world
>
>   The advantage to this approach is that we're not talking forks.  This
> is pure Gentoo, with customizations that fall within the realm of
> regular Gentoo.  If anybody has problems, they can go to generic Gentoo
> support forums/lists for help.
>

All good ideas.
Thanks for the ideas.

James