| 1 |
Marius Mauch <genone@g.o> posted |
| 2 |
20080101060928.2a500186.genone@g.o, excerpted below, on Tue, 01 |
| 3 |
Jan 2008 06:09:28 +0100: |
| 4 |
|
| 5 |
> Most of the time when I see complaints about the description of USE |
| 6 |
> flags (I'm fully aware of those) the issue isn't the format, just that |
| 7 |
> noone else has come up with a better description. |
| 8 |
|
| 9 |
There are, I believe, two complaints, but one you don't see often as many |
| 10 |
don't think it's currently possible with a global USE flag (and possible |
| 11 |
but seldom done with local flags). |
| 12 |
|
| 13 |
The first complaint is poor descriptions in general. "foo - Adds foo |
| 14 |
support" just doesn't cut it. (See USE=glw, for instance. USE=gif's |
| 15 |
"Adds GIF image support" is at least somewhat better, saying GIF is an |
| 16 |
image format, at least. I haven't a clue what libGlw does, except that |
| 17 |
it says requires mesa, which I know is 3D, so I suppose it's related to |
| 18 |
that, but what if someone doesn't know what mesa is?) This seems to be |
| 19 |
the one you are addressing. |
| 20 |
|
| 21 |
The second complaint, a frustration I often find myself experiencing, is |
| 22 |
that particularly with global flags, it's difficult to see exactly what |
| 23 |
they do in a particular package without actually seeing what the ebuild |
| 24 |
does. Does it add the dependency and link against it? Does it install |
| 25 |
example code and/or documentation for it? Does it install bindings for |
| 26 |
it? Is it build (static) against the included version vs using the |
| 27 |
system copy? Does it not change what's supported at all, only the |
| 28 |
library/codec implementation used to handle it (the case with mp3/lame/ |
| 29 |
whatever sometimes)? Etc. |
| 30 |
|
| 31 |
It'd sure be nice to be able to run an euse -i flag and get the details |
| 32 |
of what flag actually does for various packages, or euse -i flag package, |
| 33 |
and get the info for just that package. It'd be /real/ nice if emerge |
| 34 |
had a -vv or -vvv mode, that spit out what all the use flags actually did |
| 35 |
for those packages, at the detail level of the questions above. If |
| 36 |
whatever proposal makes that easier, I say go for it. =8^) |
| 37 |
|
| 38 |
-- |
| 39 |
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. |
| 40 |
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- |
| 41 |
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman |
| 42 |
|
| 43 |
-- |
| 44 |
gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list |
Archives