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On Sunday 28 September 2003 17:23, Aron Griffis wrote: |
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> Larry's complaint above pertains to things he can't change after the |
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> installation of a package. Binary-only distros provide you with a |
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> package that is customized with a set of static configure options, |
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> compiled with a set of flags, and linked against libraries that are not |
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> left to the choosing of the user. That is the problem that Portage |
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> solves by building packages on the user's machine, with USE-flags to |
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> guide the build process. |
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many customizations are also allready performed by patches to the sources, not |
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only by configuration file changes. |
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> |
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> On the other hand, what you're talking about is run-time functionality. |
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> In general, the changes in the ebuilds modify run-time configuration. |
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> It's not the appropriate place for a USE-flag (in most circumstances) |
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> and furthermore, it's not hard for savvy users to change to their |
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> preferred configuration. In Gentoo, it has always been up to the |
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> discretion of the responsible devs to choose what default configuration |
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> they feel is appropriate for each individual package. |
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This is allways the case. However look at the following: |
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When you log out of kde, and you started your system with kdm (kde display |
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manager) you get presented a nice dialog with the options to log out, reboot, |
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or shutdown. However if you started the system with any other displaymanager, |
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such as gdm, you don't get the menu. It would be conceivable that we at a |
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point in time added patches to kdm so that it does the same with gdm (which |
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provides the capabilities as gnome offers it too, but only for gdm). This is |
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nonstandard, but desirable behaviour for most users. In some cases people |
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want standard behaviour, for that we have a useflag. |
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Another thing is the fact that a script of gentoo overwrites the kdm config's |
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session variable everytime. This provides consistent and easy behaviour by |
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making all installed sessions automatically available, but is not appropriate |
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in all cases. There must be a place to turn this behaviour of. Either through |
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a USE variable at run time, or through a central configuration variable. |
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|
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Paul |
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|
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-- |
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Paul de Vrieze |
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Gentoo Developer |
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Mail: pauldv@g.o |
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Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net |
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