Re: [gentoo-dev] Creating ebuilds: Choices?

[Dan Armak]

On Friday 01 February 2002 02:45, you wrote:
> I'm creating an ebuild for apache that includes Microsoft Frontpage 2002
> extensions. Since this is an option that most people would probably not
> want, but some might, what is a good way to allow a ebuild compiler to
> choose?
>
> Would creating an apache-frontpage-1.3.22.ebuild be appropiate?
>
> What about other extensions? I assume that the builders of
> apache-1.3.22-r7.ebuild assumed everyone would want mod_ssl, but how do
> you make such a decision? Base it on what's common? For example,
> redhat's apache rpms contain mod_ssl, so gentoo should also, ect?

I don't know if it's feasible for apache, but the best strategy is having one 
ebuild install the base apache system and several others install each one 
plugin/addon e.g. frontpage, mod_ssl that would work with the existing 
installed base apache.

When plugins like that aren't possible, we tend to rely on USE flags whenever 
possible (e.g. the ssl flag). For everything that can't be linked to a USE 
flag, we add the support, unless it's something really big (e.g. the samba 
dependency for kdebase, which is disabled). If however apache becomes not 
just larger but  slower (and perhaps has a bigger mem footprint) because of 
added support, the decision really is a hard one. But from what I know of 
apache, I think it's modular, either at the compiling level (i.e. compile 
extra modules later) or at the loading level (only load the parts you need)?


-- 
Dan Armak
Gentoo Linux Developer, Desktop Team (KDE)
Matan, Israel