Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: drobbins@g.o
To: gentoo-dev@g.o
Subject: [gentoo-dev] virtuals info?
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 18:58:36
Message-Id: 20010226185836.A19759@cvs.gentoo.org
1 Hi there,
2
3 I'd like to get an update from the committers on our virtual packages. Here's
4 a list of all the ones currently being used on Portage, along with commentary.
5
6 As far as I know, the following four virtuals were for the now defunct sys-build
7 tree and will be eliminated in the near future (Achim -- is this correct?)
8
9 virtual/glibc
10 virtual/bash
11 virtual/flex
12 virtual/bison
13
14 This next one is used so that users don't need to install all the languages that
15 come with KDE:
16
17 virtual/kde-i18n
18
19 The next one is used to mean "a printing system of some kind". I'm a bit iffy on
20 this one, because different printing systems (CUPS,lprng,lpr) work very differently.
21 Whether a package is compatible with a printing system is most likely going to be
22 package-specific. Does it make sense to remove it?
23
24 virtual/lpr
25
26 virtual/python is used for static python and dynamic python. This is OK, since they
27 both provide python interpreter functionality
28
29 virtual/python
30
31 This next one is OK
32
33 virtual/x11-web-browser
34
35 AFAIK, virtual/mta is used more as a protective measure against multiple mta installs
36
37 virtual/mta
38
39 OK, what's virtual/alsa for. Something to do with ALSA, but what? Is our kernel package
40 supposed to provide this?
41
42 virtual/alsa
43
44 And... virtual/kernel should be removed. Right now, linux-sources and linux are providing
45 this package, but linux-sources _doesn't include a kernel!_. So I don't think this
46 one is necessary.
47
48 virtual/kernel
49
50 --
51 Daniel Robbins <drobbins@g.o>
52 President/CEO http://www.gentoo.org
53 Gentoo Technologies, Inc.