[gentoo-user] Re: Finer grained kde*-meta packages

[Alexander Skwar]

Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. <bss03@××××××××××.net> wrote:
> On Friday 15 June 2007, Alexander Skwar <listen@×××××××××××××××.name>

> Yep.  You get kde-meta or individual kde packages or you get your own
> ebuild that depends on a number of KDE packages.  The Gentoo developers do
> quite a bit of work just to give us kde-meta.  Be glad they don't stick
> you with the monolithic ebuilds.

I am glad and thankful that they provide the meta stuff. But I think,
that the meta packages can be enhanced.

>> Nah. IMO that's the wrong way around. IMO the correct way would
>> be to enhance the kde*-meta packages so, that they support USE flags,
>> which allow the user to select what's to be installed.
>
> I suppose that's a good idea in the future.  Perhaps you should file an
> enhancement bug.

Done. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=182106

> That said, I would prefer kde-meta install all the
> packages that are part of KDE's upstream packaging by default.

Fine. Me not. That's the whole point of having choices :)

Uhm - reading again what you wrote: "Me too!". By default,
all the upstream packages should be installed. Yes. By default.
But please give me the choice.

>> Eg. a "ppp" flag to select that ppp related stuff is to be installed.
>> Or "filesharing" to disable filesharing related stuf
>
> Do you suggest a global flag?

I don't think so. I'd rather think, that those flags should
be local ones to the package.

> If so, what packages do you recommend this flags modify the behavior of?

"Depends" :) This post was not so much about the ppp/kppp "issue"
anymore. I wanted to see, if other people would think that a
finer grained control would be a good idea.

> If not, shouldn't it have a less ambiguous name?

The "ppp" flag is already "known" to portage.

--($:~/tmp)-- euses -i ppp
net-dialup/capi4k-utils:pppd - Installs pppdcapiplugin modules

But maybe "dialup" might be good. But that's details.

>> I mean, what's the advantage of the kde*-meta packages over the kde
>> package, when the kde*-meta require just as much "junk", as the
>> kde package does? Hm, really, what's the use of the kde*-meta package
>> anyway?
>
> The kde-meta package is meant to replace the kde package.  The is no
> advantage (and without a workable confcache, at least one disadvantage) to
> running split ebuilds.  The advantage of split ebilds is that you have the
> choice to install only the kde applications you want, by using the
> individual ebaulds, without dragging in all of kde (which is what "old"
> style kde packages pulled in as a dependency.)

But with using the kde*-meta package, this advantage doesn't
exist.

Suppose you've got the following "use case": Install all of
KDE, but leave out PPP stuff.

How would you solve that? 

cd /usr/portage
emerge `ls -1 kde-*/* | grep -v ppp`

I think not... (Yes, I know that this does not work.)

If it were possible to exclude certain applications or, maybe
even better, certain functions, then this use case could easily
be solved.

But maybe it's really just something peculiar about KDE, as KDE
consists of about 300 packages. Because of that gigantic number,
I could imagine that people might want to install "everything, but XYZ".
At least that's my reasoning.

> Are the monolithic ebuilds still available?

Yes. Eg. kdemultimedia-3.5.7.ebuild

> They need to be purged from
> the tree ASAP.

Have phun with bugzilla :)

Or where should something like this actually be brought
up?

> -

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away the .sig when quoting.

Alexander Skwar

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