| 1 |
Lares Moreau wrote: |
| 2 |
|
| 3 |
>On Mon, 2005-12-26 at 12:36 -0600, Joe McCann wrote: |
| 4 |
> |
| 5 |
> |
| 6 |
>>For the record, the eds flag was |
| 7 |
>>added as a default flag because every 3rd gnome user would file bugs or |
| 8 |
>>complain via forums because they installed gnome, found no |
| 9 |
>>evolution-data-server integration, and then be bummed when they had to |
| 10 |
>>recompile packages again. This whole thread seems to have come from a |
| 11 |
>>misunderstanding of how use.defaults work and 20 min of boredom. |
| 12 |
>> |
| 13 |
>> |
| 14 |
>> |
| 15 |
> |
| 16 |
>I'm relatively ignorant of USE Flag intricacies, so please forgive me if |
| 17 |
>things don't 'fit'. |
| 18 |
> |
| 19 |
>Is it feasible and or useful to have a 'meta-flag' that that enables all |
| 20 |
>the 'necessary' USE flags for a given group of packages? So something |
| 21 |
>like USE='meta-<flagname>'. |
| 22 |
>This has the distinction of being a meta-flag, and as such nothing |
| 23 |
>really gets turned on 'behind the users back', advanced users can look |
| 24 |
>into it and see what is being enabled by it and USE='-flag' for the |
| 25 |
>flags the users doesn't need/want, and expert users would just not use |
| 26 |
>it. This way meta packages like KDE and Gnome can have their own |
| 27 |
>meta-flag to do what the need with. |
| 28 |
> |
| 29 |
>It also seems to me that more things will need to 'just work' as our |
| 30 |
>user-base becomes larger and, on average, less advanced. We could amend |
| 31 |
>the desktop guide to include something like USE='meta-gnome' to the |
| 32 |
>gnome section. And similar to other meta-flags. |
| 33 |
> |
| 34 |
>This may add an unnecessary level of complexity to the use flag system, |
| 35 |
>but also may be very useful. |
| 36 |
> |
| 37 |
> |
| 38 |
> |
| 39 |
It occurs to me that this could be (to an extent) accomplished by having |
| 40 |
a few more "specialized" subprofiles for x86: base, desktop, gnome, and kde. |
| 41 |
|
| 42 |
base - as the name implies, a _basic_ starting point... very similar to |
| 43 |
server profiles, etc. veeery minimal. |
| 44 |
desktop - almost identical to the current USE flags -- what Joe Q. User |
| 45 |
"should" have to be safe, and have programs function as expected. |
| 46 |
gnome / kde - slight specializations of the above to tailor the use |
| 47 |
flags for one desktop environ or the other.. |
| 48 |
|
| 49 |
Problems? |
| 50 |
1) heavier usage and depth of the profile, making where things come in |
| 51 |
more and more obscure. |
| 52 |
2) could lead to proliferation of environment tailored "desktop" |
| 53 |
derivatives. (xfce, fluxbox, the list could go on) This may not be a |
| 54 |
problem as many distros have successfully divided between KDE and Gnome, |
| 55 |
and the base / desktop profiles would allow users ways to customize, as |
| 56 |
always. |
| 57 |
3) there is _no_ functionality added by any of this, only |
| 58 |
"user-friendliness" after a fashion, and as such, perhaps it should all |
| 59 |
be chucked in favor of having users competently declare their own global |
| 60 |
USE flags during the install, however I doubt that'll get very far. *shrug* |
| 61 |
|
| 62 |
I'm certain there are more/bigger problems with this than I'm seeing, |
| 63 |
but as an alternative to USE-flag grouping/meta structure/etc, i thought |
| 64 |
i'd toss out the very flexible profile system we already have available |
| 65 |
(afaik). =] Profiles are I think underused, but there may well be _good_ |
| 66 |
reasons for that, so just my 2cents. |
| 67 |
|
| 68 |
-Chandler Carruth, yet another gentoo user... |
| 69 |
-- |
| 70 |
gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list |
Archives