One of the nagging annoyances with Gentoo is the constant, steady increase in the number of packages installed (even though I'm not changing anything or adding anything new). It's usually just 1 or 2 new packages every now and then, which is tolerable.
Then there are routine updates like this morning's which wanted to install 41 new packages (all java libraries). And it had only been a couple days since the previous update. I think the offender was dev-java/avalon-framework suddenly deciding it needed a shit-ton of new libraries for some reason. The only thing that used avalon-framework was dev-java/fop, and I don't actually use FOP anymore. So I removed fop, did a depclean (which removed a few dozen other java packages), and the subsequent update no longer required any new packages. FOP has always seemed a bit bloated, but this was a bit beyond the pale. So I escaped this time. Next time I probably won't be so lucky. -- Grant
