[gentoo-dev] Re: Implicit system dependency

[Duncan]

Andreas K. Huettel posted on Tue, 18 Nov 2014 00:05:03 +0100 as excerpted:


> Message to users- if you want a minimum set of useflags, start from the
> main default profile of your arch. That's what it is for. Everything
> else, and you sure get to keep the pieces.

But for no-multilib, there's still both far too many USE flags enabled by 
default, and far too much stuff in @system, once dependencies are 
included.

So here I'm on about the only amd64-no-multilib profile available, but 
with all @system packages negated and with USE="-* ...".

And you know what?  It actually works very well! =:^)

Tho obviously I was a reasonably mature gentoo user before I tried it, I 
already had my main system setup, and when I set USE=-* I did an emerge
--verbose --pretend and looked at what flags on what packages would 
change, before deciding whether that was sane and what I wanted, or not, 
and setting specific flags either globally or per-package accordingly.

Similarly with the @system package negation.  Negate the list a few 
packages at a time and do an emerge --pretend --depclean and see what 
comes up.  If it's sane, unmerge it.  Else add it to the appropriate 
custom set that's covered by the world-sets file.

Nothing really dangerous or insane about that, as long as you take it a 
step at a time using --pretend first, and don't let it /do/ anything 
insane -- make the necessary set and USE flag changes to prevent emerge 
trying to remove something critical, and /then/ let it have at it with 
the rest.

Like I said, as could be expected with gentoo, which routinely takes into 
account that users /might/ have a good reason for not wanting the 
defaults, it actually works really well. =:^)


Tho I actually appreciate the "you get to keep the pieces" aspect as 
well.  Unlike many distros, gentoo actually respects the user and their 
right to decide enough to give them the /power/ to break the system, if 
they "drink and emerge", or similar foolish things.  The guard rails are 
there and that's appreciated, but there's also unlocked gates (with clear 
warnings on them) thru those guard rails, because that's what gentoo is 
/about/.  Sure, people can and do go thru those gates from time to time, 
but it's their responsibility to be appropriately roped up if they do, 
and if they can't do that and end up falling off the gentoo cliff and 
landing on arch or fedora (or even osx or ms windows!) instead, well, it 
was probably for the best.

So let's keep the warnings there as they do warn the unwary, but also the 
unlocked gates thru those default-use railings.  =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman