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Hi Martin and other Gentoo Hackers, |
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|
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Martin said: |
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"Try the following: Make sure gnome is in use flags, then remerge |
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gdk-pixbuf. Then make sure gnome-base/gnome-core and |
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gnome-base/gnome-libs are merged, and remerge Pan." |
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|
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Ok I followed these steps, and I noticed that gnome-base/gnome-core and |
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gnome-base/gnome-libs are indeed merged on my box. (I looked in /var/db/pkg |
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to check this.) And it didn't help, but you probably knew that by now :) |
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|
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Then, Martin said: |
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"You have gnome in your USE-variables (in /etc/make.conf), that's why |
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gnome-support is built. If you don't want GNOME-support, remove gnome |
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from your use-variables." |
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|
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Ok, I am beginning to understand the USE flags a little better now. However |
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this brings up a serious question. What about people who want to use BOTH |
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GNOME and KDE?? Personally, I will most likely take out 'gnome' from my USE |
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flags and try again, but... There might be very valid and good reasons why |
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someone might want to run both KDE and GNOME on the same box. Possible |
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scenarios: |
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|
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1. More than one person uses the box at home, and they have different |
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preferences. |
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|
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2. The box is in a computer lab, and many people use it there. Again, they |
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might have different preferences. |
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|
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3. Someone likes to switch between Gnome and KDE on a whim, just for the fun |
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of it. |
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|
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One possible solution that I can see: |
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|
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When building apps, check both KDE AND GNOME flags. If both of them are |
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defined, make the app usable in both environments. For gaim, that would mean |
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sacrificing the applet functionality, and maybe gnome bits. So, the ebuilds |
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would be sensitive to both variables and there would be 4 possible actions |
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that could be taken: a) neither KDE nor GNOME defined, b) KDE only, c) GNOME |
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only and d) usable under both KDE and GNOME. |
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|
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More generally, if there are more that one desktop environment flags in USE |
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flags, then emerge/ebuild should avoid building an application that is |
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hardwired to only one desktop environment. So, this could be generalized |
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away from just KDE/Gnome distinction. This could be further generalized away |
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from even desktop environments. |
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|
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How about creating a new variable called ALTERNATIVE or something like that? |
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|
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Then we could say: |
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|
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ALTERNATIVE="desktop_environment kde gnome" |
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ALTERNATIVE="database postgre mysql" |
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...and so on, |
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|
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and what it would mean is this: if there are ALTERNATIVE |
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desktop_environment's in place, be sensitive to that fact by NOT building |
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apps that do not work with ALL of the alternatives. If there are alternative |
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database's in use, then do NOT build apps that can only use one database and |
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not the other. |
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|
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The primary use for this would probably be for DEs and maybe databases, but |
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if any other alternatives should crop up, it would be very easy to handle |
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them all with a flexible and general system. |
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|
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Just an idea :). |
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|
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--Leo |