Re: [gentoo-user] [FIXED] New install - Wayland and graphical login

[Michael]

On Tuesday, 29 June 2021 11:32:52 BST antlists wrote:
> On 29/06/2021 10:44, Michael wrote:

> > In Plasma this would be kwin, which acts as a window manager and a
> > compositor. If you had installed Plasma in accordance with the URL I
> > shared in previous emails you shouldn't have this problem, because from
> > what I recall kwin is being drawn in as a dependency of Plasma.
>
> And Plasma is a dependency of what? Again, this is down to me not fully
> understanding everything, but surely if I selected the
> desktop/plasma/systemd profile, that should call in the basic plasma
> packages by default? Maybe even the kde ones?

The make.profile choice switches on/off certain USE flags and specifies a set 
of system packages for the particular profile.  These will in turn drag in 
other packages as dependencies when you update your system.  Therefore, unless 
you go for a minimalist make.profile you should not need to be emerging 
packages one at a time to get a functional desktop, although you will need to 
emerge individual applications of choice if these are not already included in 
the DE default set of packages.  More details:

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Profile_(Portage)

KDE applications are mostly grouped in meta packages.  These are meant to be 
installed selectively.  For example I install 'kde-apps/kdepim-meta' because I 
use Kmail, but will not install 'kde-apps/kdegames-meta' because I don't run 
any games applications.


> (Having re-read the KDE page, it's suddenly making a lot more sense, but
> that's with hindsight. But am I right that the profile modifies the
> system set of packages?)

Yes, as I mention above, it modifies USE flags and specifies a set of system 
packages too.

You could have started with a stripped down profile, like 'default/linux/
amd64/17.1/systemd (stable)' and then spend a lot of time tweaking USE flags 
and installing various packages and meta packages to get to the same end 
result.  Thanks to Gentoo devs, all this work is no longer necessary since 
there are more make.profile options to choose from.  :-)