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On 14:19 Mon 27 Apr , Duncan wrote: |
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> In particular, don't make the mistake gtk/gtk2 did for awhile. USE=gtk |
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> indicated a general desire to have gtk (of any version) support, while |
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> USE=gtk2 indicated that gtk2 should be favored over gtk1, otherwise, gtk1 |
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> was the default. That policy, which looked quite reasonable when gtk2 |
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> was new and experimental, ended up boxing them into a corner as gtk2 |
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> improved and became the dominant version, while gtk1 grew stale and was |
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> eventually deprecated in the Gentoo tree and later masked and ultimately |
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> removed (along with any packages, xmms being one of the most popular, |
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> that hadn't upgraded to gtk2 by then), and they ultimately ended up |
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> changing it in a way that couldn't be anything /but/ rough for some users. |
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> |
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> But even before that it was a pain, because it didn't follow the |
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> intuitive idea that USE=gtk meant gtk1 support while USE=gtk2 meant gtk2 |
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> support. New users very often enabled gtk2 without enabling gtk, |
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> believing they were expressing a desire for gtk2 support but NOT gtk1, |
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> when instead what it was really expressing was, don't support gtk (of any |
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> version) unless you have to, but if it's mandatory and there's a choice, |
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> choose gtk2 over gtk1. |
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One thing that's changed since then is package-local USE defaults. So |
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you can pick the best (most stable, etc) toolkit on a per-package level |
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and have a versioned USE flag for the other (if it's newer) or don't |
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have an option at all (if it's older than the stable one). |
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-- |
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Thanks, |
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Donnie |
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|
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Donnie Berkholz |
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Desktop project lead |
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Gentoo Linux |
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Blog: http://dberkholz.wordpress.com |
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