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John Jolet schreef: |
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> |
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> On Oct 14, 2005, at 2:13 PM, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: |
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> |
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>> On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 16:29:39 +0100 (WEST) Jorge Almeida |
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>> <jalmeida@××××××××××××.pt> wrote: | I would like to know how the |
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>> current USE variables are set. | I know that "emerge --info" |
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>> displays a list of all of them, but it | doesn't discriminate where |
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>> they come from. I couldn't find clear | documentation about it, |
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>> but of course I may have missed something. | In the same line, I |
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>> find /etc/make.profile/make.defaults _very | strange_. "perl"? |
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>> Sure. "fortran"? Well, who knows... But "emboss"?! | (In case it |
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>> doesn't ring a bell immediately: emboss - Adds support for | the |
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>> European Molecular Biology Open Software Suite) | Could this be a |
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>> joke? |
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>> |
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>> Uh, no. USE flags do not control whether packages get installed. |
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>> They control whether something which has **optional** support will |
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>> use it. So, for things with optional emboss support, by default the |
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>> emboss support will be enabled. Which makes sense, because if |
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>> you're installing science apps, you'll probably want it, and if |
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>> you're not installing science apps you'll never see it anyway. |
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>> |
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> but if a program has optional support for a package that CAN be a |
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> prerequisite, based on USE flags, emerge will install that |
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> prerequisite or not. In that way, they DO control whether packages |
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> get installed. |
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> |
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Well, that's true... and I'll even leave aside the fact that USE flags |
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are the lesser of whatever evils in terms of dragging in "unwanted" |
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additional applications or libraries, since at least with USE flags you |
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can control it, but with hard dependencies, you of course can't. |
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But given that /etc/make.conf (and /etc/portage/package.use) |
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trumps everything, and given that you can easily see what flags are in |
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use with emerge info and emerge --verbose, I don't see what the big deal |
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is as to what the defaults are and where they are set in the first place. |
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If a USE flag does something you don't want, unset it. Defaults are not |
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the be-all and end-all of existence; the very presence of 'defaults' |
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means that the user can control them (if something has a 'default' |
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setting, that necessarily means that other settings are possible). |
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It's not as if knowing that the default USE flags are set in |
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/etc/make.profile (plus other cascaded locations) makes the first hairy |
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bit of difference, since the user will never be able to control the |
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contents of that file, but only override their contents manually in the |
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aforementioned /etc/make.conf and /etc/portage/package.use. |
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You could edit /etc/make.profile if you liked, I suppose, but Portage |
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will update it at one or more various points anyway, and then where are you? |
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Sorry, just a bit cranky this evening. |
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Holly |
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-- |
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