[gentoo-dev] Re: "X" vs "gtk" USE flags

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 02/08/2010 01:36 PM, AllenJB wrote:
> On 08/02/10 11:15, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>> Hello.  Please don't be too harsh if I got this wrong or if this looks
>> like whining :P
>>
>> A lot of ebuilds seem to ignore the "X" USE flag and instead only have
>> "gtk", "qt" and the like.  This should be declared absolutely wrong,
>> IMHO.  When a program provides a command-line tool and a GUI tool, and
>> the GUI tool uses only one toolkit, then the USE flag should be "X".
>> [...]
>>
> I don't see that either system makes particularly more sense than the
> other.
>
> The only situation that comes immediately to mind is: Under the current
> system, if packages add or remove support for multiple toolkits, the
> changes are trivial, but under your system it would invoke shuffling use
> flags around (which could easily affect dependencies in other packages).
> It would also not be immediately clear which toolkits support has been
> added/removed under the proposed system (since a package would go from,
> for example, having use flags "gtk kde" to just "X").

If it would be problematic for a package to switch to "X" then of course 
it might be better to leave it as-is.  But most of the time, the 
programs in question only state "gtk" or "fltk" in them, even though Gtk 
is not optional at all.  A perfect example here is media-video/xvattr. 
If you don't set the "gtk" USE flag, then you don't get the graphical 
tool at all, only the command line tool.

So in other words what I propose a bit more sanity, not some iron claw 
that hangs above the developer's heads.  The situation right now is 
mixed anyway.  Many packages use X, many others "gtk" or "fltk".  The 
"sanity" part in this is simple that a general rule of USE flags is: If 
it's *not* optional, don't make it a USE flag.  In the case of xvattr 
for example, Gtk is not optional if you want the X utility.