Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Gordon Pettey <petteyg359@×××××.com>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Global USE=gui
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2016 14:22:53
Message-Id: CAHY5Mec8iKeotAoECb=e822H9xYMH258qru7Yv_02rhugVo49Q@mail.gmail.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Global USE=gui by Damien Levac
1 On Fri, Jun 3, 2016 at 8:06 AM, Damien Levac <damien.levac@×××××.com> wrote:
2
3 > On 2016-06-02 05:27 PM, Daniel Campbell wrote:
4 >
5 >> On 06/02/2016 12:57 PM, Damien Levac wrote:
6 >>
7 >>>
8 >>> On 2016-06-02 03:42 PM, waltdnes@××××××××.org wrote:
9 >>>
10 >>>> On Thu, Jun 02, 2016 at 09:31:11AM -0400, Damien Levac wrote
11 >>>>
12 >>>>> IMHO, you see this in reverse. the 'gui' useflag would be useful for
13 >>>>> users who don't want to care about X/wayland/mir and do not want to
14 >>>>> care
15 >>>>> about gtk/qt, they just want windows to be drawn for the applications
16 >>>>> they install -- without, if possible, pulling useless dependencies.
17 >>>>>
18 >>>> How, exactly, will the app draw windows without linking against one
19 >>>> of
20 >>>> X/wayland/mir/qt4/qt5/gtk2/gtk3/fltk or whatever else comes down the
21 >>>> pike?
22 >>>>
23 >>> It will be linked to one of those, but the users don't want to care so
24 >>> reasonable default would apply.
25 >>>
26 >>> For example, if I have setup my profile to be 'plasma', then having
27 >>> 'gui' in my global use flags would mean "build with qt5 support to
28 >>> provide my gui whenever possible, if not possible, fallback to whatever
29 >>> is available at the discretion of the package maintainer".
30 >>>
31 >>> 2 nice properties I foresee this feature will have:
32 >>>
33 >>> * If you do not like it, don't use it. It shouldn't affect any user
34 >>> unless they explicitly use the flag.
35 >>> * Negating the flag would mean to not build any GUI (i.e. headless
36 >>> server) which is cleaner than: '-qt3support -qt4 -qt5 -gtk -gtk3 -X
37 >>> -waylang...'
38 >>>
39 >>> I do not think the question is whether the flag would be useful: it
40 >>> will. The question is: can it be implemented efficiently...
41 >>>
42 >> To play devil's advocate, can we get a citation on "users don't want to
43 >> care"? Which users? Does Gentoo have a lot of users who don't care, or
44 >> does it attract a more passionate audience that enjoys the control that
45 >> comes with being source-based? I'm inclined to believe the latter, but
46 >> I'm ready to be wrong.
47 >>
48 > Personal experience: I use to care a lot and tweak my system a lot... But
49 > I am not an eager undergraduate anymore, my interests have shift. I still
50 > use Gentoo as I know the system very well and like it. But I am in a point
51 > in my life where I want to focus on my work and not on whether or not I am
52 > making a 'gtk-only' or 'qt-only' system..
53 >
54 I'm a USE="-*" person, and I think USE="gui" to clean up a few lines in
55 package.use/* would be a nice idea... We do exist :)