Re: [gentoo-dev] USE flags dri, cups, pppd

[Rich Freeman]

On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 4:59 PM, Rick "Zero_Chaos" Farina
<zerochaos@g.o> wrote:
>> If we have it as IUSE default, it can be removed from the profiles
>> entirely. Having it only in the desktop profile is not good in any
>> scenario I can think of.
>
> chithanh, maybe you can explain to everyone why USE=dri is needed for
> base profile.  You seem to be the most knowledgable here, can you cite a
> specific example for how/why a non-desktop profile machine would need
> USE=dri.  I think that the example may make it more obvious to people
> what is right or wrong here.
>

It is needed if you want to run X11 in the generally-recommended
configuration.  I believe it is required for kernel modesetting, and
that is the most stable way to run X11 (and I think that allows a
non-suid X11 server).  I would think that would be the best
configuration for X11 on any system, whether server, desktop, etc.

Now, in case some of you are thinking "but I NEVER run X11 on my
<insert non-desktop scenario here>," in that case the USE flag won't
have any effect anyway.  But, if there are people who run X11 on their
<insert non-desktop scenario here> they will get an all-around better
experience with dri enabled.

I can't really think of a case where somebody would want something
that supports dri that is in the tree, but wouldn't want to use dri.
Even things like embedded use dri (and in fact it is even more
important there with the wimpy CPUs).  And if you're running X11 on a
server for whatever reason, wouldn't that be the place you would most
want it to run as non-root?

Rich