Re: [gentoo-dev] icedtea requiring X libs to build was -> Guidelines for IUSE defaults

[William L. Thomson Jr.]

On Thursday, February 2, 2017 11:27:20 AM EST Michael Orlitzky wrote:
> On 02/02/2017 11:18 AM, William L. Thomson Jr. wrote:
> > If you look at dev-java/icedtea ebuild you will see
> >
> > # Gtk+ will move to COMMON_DEP in time; PR1982
> >
> > I cannot find PR1982 referenced to link. But shows that it is needed and
> > causes issues without being set.
>
> I don't really want to fight about this. I have USE="-gtk" for
> icedtea-bin, and run a few happy websites through Tomcat that haven't
> yet noticed that GTK is missing.

Who is fighting? I am just explaining. Unless you go to use some graphical 
aspect of Java it will not matter. Same thing applies to oracle-jdk-bin if you 
do not have various USE flags set. It will not matter if you are not using Java 
code that relies on such. Nothing from java.awt.* for example. Previous link 
on headless shows stuff your likely not using, thus no issues.

GTK is not really necessary unless using swing/javafx, maybe some awt. The 
graphical aspects do not rely on GTK at its core. They do rely on various X 
libraries. When it comes to building that is another matter. GTK is needed to 
build a complete Java env. Just showing the comment since it was attempted to 
make GTK optional USE flag but has issues. I just cannot point specifically to 
the issues. Thus you can build and run without GTK, but eventually that will 
not be an option for reasons unknown in the PR comment.

> But more importantly, icedtea-bin was just one example that I had in
> mind. There are hundreds of others in the tree.

Sure, but some packages themselves go against a minimalist approach due to 
their own build requirements. You have to fight the package to make them 
minimal and I am not sure the fight is worth it at times.

-- 
William L. Thomson Jr.