Georgi Georgiev wrote:
> maillog: 19/06/2006-11:13:33(+0000): Alec Warner types
> 
>>Portage currently exports $KV as the current kernel version.  We detect 
>>this by attempting to mess around with the things in /usr/src/linux 
>>(.config, make files, etc...)
>>
>>This is duplicating the superb efforts of the kernel team and of 
>>linux-info eclass.  As such I would like to deprecate $KV in favor of 
>>using linux-info eclass.  I don't see the need for portage to export $KV 
>>into the environment for all packages.
>>
>>There are a few packages left that use this.  There will be a tracker 
>>bug shortly.  Mostly this mail is just a heads up ;)
> 
> 
> But any kind of checks against something in $KERNEL_DIR are just wrong,
> wrong, wrong. The only exception being when the ebuild is building
> something *against* those sources (kernel modules, and that's it).
> 
> It's annoying to have virtual/linux-sources pulled as a dep of gnupg,
> iptables or any other package that can do fine without them.
> 
In many cases those packages are looking for a specific kernel feature 
to make sure support is enabled for it.

You could argue that in the case where you aren't compiling against the 
kernel that support being enabled isn't critical, but that is a 
discussion you need to have with the package maintainers.
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