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On Tuesday 02 January 2007 15:35, Alan E. Davis wrote: |
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> Thank you for the insight, Alan. I am just getting to the point of |
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> understanding this. As a non -developer/programmer I have been at a |
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> loss to understand these basic points about USE flags. Over time, |
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> they begin to make sense. Your pointer about the ebuilds is |
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> extremely valuable. |
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You're welcome |
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> Maybe it's just me, in my cluelessness? Some flags have not been |
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> obvious to me; others have been ambiguous, at least to me. Maybe |
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> digging for all this is what makes Gentoo such an excellent |
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> experience. On the other hand, a little more clarity would not hurt, |
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> IMHO. Beggars can't be choicy, but is it really not possible to |
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> provide a slightly clearer explanation of what a USE flag does? I'd |
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> better shut up. |
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They are just another one of those things that are the way they are |
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because someone made them that way, and the existing descriptions of |
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USE flags are meant to be meaningful in one sentence. Returning to the |
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kdebase example: |
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[snip] |
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> > DEPEND="arts? ( ~kde-base/arts-${PV} ) |
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> > |
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> > >=media-libs/freetype-2 |
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> > |
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> > media-libs/fontconfig |
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> > pam? ( kde-base/kdebase-pam ) |
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> > |
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> > >=dev-libs/cyrus-sasl-2 |
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> > |
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> > ldap? ( >=net-nds/openldap-2 ) |
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> > cups? ( net-print/cups ) |
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There are 3 flags there: pam, ldap and cups and the only thing anyone |
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can tell you about them is that they respectively enable pam, ldap and |
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cups support inside kdebase. As to what that means, you will have to |
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look at the kdebase documentation to find out what that package does |
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with pam. |
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|
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xscreensavers also has a pam USE flag, and the way it uses pam might be |
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essentially the same as what kdebase does with it. Or it might not. It |
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all depends on how xscreensavers was written, and this is outside |
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gentoo's control. |
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I understand you would like more clarity and I get the kind of list you |
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would like to have. I want you to grasp though that this is not really |
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possible in any thorough way. A detailed explanation of what the USE |
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flags means inside each ebuild that uses it is something you might |
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suggest, but I'll bet money that you will be shot down in flames for |
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suggesting it. It will be a lot of extra work on top of a lot of |
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existing work, for precious little benefit as the info is usually |
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documented elsewhere in the package itself. And we are supposed to all |
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know how to RTFM right? |
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Welcome to the wonderful world of computing where nothing is as it first |
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seems :-) |
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alan |
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-- |
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