Re: [gentoo-user] Re: confessions of a current USE=*

[Alan McKinnon]

On 15/04/2016 13:15, Philip Webb wrote:
> 160414 waltdnes@××××××××.org wrote:
>> I used to use USE='-* blah blah blah".  My rule of thumb was to compare
>> * how many "foobar" entries I'd have to make in package.use,
>> if I didn't include "foobar" in make.conf, versus
>> * how many "-foobar" entries I'd have to make in package.use,
>> if I did include "foobar" in make.conf
>> Whichever way resulted in fewer entries in package.use was the way I'd go.
>> I effectively built my own custom profile.
>
>> I've now switched to the conventional style, without "-*",
>> but I now have a lot of "-foobar" flags in USE, like so
>> USE="10bit 12bit X apng bindist ffmpeg gles2 jpeg netifrc png snappy szip truetype x264 x265 xorg -acl -berkdb -caps -chatzilla -cracklib -crypt -filecaps -gallium -gdbm -gmp-autoupdate -graphite -gstreamer -iconv -introspection -ipc -iptables -ipv6 -libav -llvm -manpager -nls -openmp -pam -pch -roaming -sendmail -spell -tcpd -udev -udisks -unicode -upower -uuid -xinerama"
>
> I'm persisting with '-*', but I've never understood profiles
> & I've never done 'emerge world' without '-p',
> so I've always had detailed control over what it getting installed.
> In my home-made list of installed pkgs I note with 'USE' those
> which have a custom flag in  package.use  & check when updating.

well there is such a thing as too much control and forcing yourself to
fiddle with low-level things more than you need to.

Profiles are supposed to provide a decent baseline setup for a given
scenario or usage case. Then you fine-tweak package.use to get exactly
what you want.

Well that's the theory. In practice profiles get confusing because they
inherit from all many things. If there was such a thing as an easy to
use user-defined profile method, the perceived need for USE="-*" might
go away

>
> Occasionally, a new flag trips me up, but it's fairly easy to recover
> once the location of the problem has been determined.
>
> My own complaint re USE flags is the all-too-meagre output of 'euses' :
>
>   root:502 ~> euses gtk3
>     app-editors/bluefish:gtk3 - Enable GTK3 interface (default)
>     app-editors/emacs:gtk3 - Prefer version 3 of the GIMP Toolkit to version 2 (x11-libs/gtk+)
>     app-editors/emacs-vcs:gtk3 - Prefer version 3 of the GIMP Toolkit to version 2 (x11-libs/gtk+)
>     app-editors/mousepad:gtk3 - Use GTK+3 instead of GTK+2
>     app-i18n/fcitx:gtk3 - Install input method module for GTK+ 3
>     app-i18n/fcitx-configtool:gtk3 - Use GTK+3 instead of 2
>     app-i18n/ibus:gtk3 - Enable support for gtk+3
>     app-i18n/ibus-unikey:gtk3 - Enable support for gtk+3
>     app-i18n/imsettings:gtk3 - Enable support for x11-libs/gtk+:3
>     app-i18n/scim:gtk3 - Enable support for x11-libs/gtk+:3
>     app-i18n/scim-anthy:gtk3 - Enable support for x11-libs/gtk+:3
>     app-i18n/uim:gtk3 - Enable support for x11-libs/gtk+:3
>     ... [ 37  similarly useless descriptions]
>
> This urgently needs cleaning up, like much of Emerge's output.

Indeed. Most flag definitions give you MORE information when removed.
Less junk implies more truth



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@×××××.com