Re: [gentoo-dev] REQUIRED_USE, global USE flags, user-friendliness...

[Walter Dnes]

On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 02:57:00PM -0500, james wrote
>
> Exactly:: simplify the flags, profiles and associated constructs down to
> the bare bones. Even embedded (arm/mips/etc) builds could benefit from a
> really minimized gentoo as a starting point. Freedom to build and fork
> Gentoo, per GLEP 70 is a wonderful idea, whose time has arrived. That
> would set the stage for quickly building highly specific gentoo installs
> (VMs, Containers, Clusters or unikernel); all via a 'recipe' from the
> minimal core-sed, which  could then take a variety of forms, such as
> bare-metal builds vi IPMI, ipxe, or more traditional formularies like
> chef, puppet, ansible as well as a myriad of other possibilities.
>
>
> All of the traditional gentoo installs, such as the handbook, would
> benefit from simplification  and the natural clarity that simplification
> brings. Builds of things like simple standard gentoo-cluster-CI.
> Nothing would preclude the adventuresome from building up a
> traditional, highly customized install, for a specific needs such as
> currently is the (handbook) practice. But additional gentoo installs
> that are quick, streamlined and soot a specific itch.

  A possible starting point...

* Start with a basic text-mode install, with minimal USE flags
  USE="-* foo bar etc..."

* Specialized profiles could be generated by a 3-step process
  1) Append any required profile-specific additional USE flags
  2) Necessary profile-specific apps and/or libraries could be listed in
     sets in /etc/portage/sets
  3) emerge --changed-use --deep --update @world

  The advantage to this approach is that we're not talking forks.  This
is pure Gentoo, with customizations that fall within the realm of
regular Gentoo.  If anybody has problems, they can go to generic Gentoo
support forums/lists for help.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@××××××××.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications