On 11/20/13 5:10 PM, Jack Howarth wrote: > Considering the dependency chain issues produced by certain packages > with -nox variants, it might be worthwhile to review those packages and > make a cold judgement on the cost/benefits in each case. For example, > texlive is a rather large package to build and if the user naively chooses the > wrong (ie, -nox) variant, they are forced to rebuild it. This was less of an > issue when we had official binary support but considering that the vast > majority > of users are building locally, the decision should be more on the metrics > of... > > 1) how much larger is the dependency train of the package with X11 support? > 2) how much longer does the build of the package itself take with X11 support? > 3) how much core functionality is lost from the package by skipping te X11 > support? > > I suspect a lot of the -nox variants have been added more as an exercise in > packaging technique than to provide real benefit (and less confusion) to the > majority of the user base. In those cases, we should seriously consider > deprecating the -nox variant with the addition of a obsoleted split-off > as a placeholder ala gnuplot-minimal. > Jack > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(gnuplot-minimal is a bad example, technically, because it uses -nox variants of dependent libraries). Many -nox variants originated back before OS X started actually shipping with X11, and so folks either had to do a manual XFree86 install or build it with Fink. It can indeed be confusing for the users, particularly when the -nox and X11-enabled .info files are variants and therefore share user-visible Desc* fields. On the other hand, there may still be a number of folks around who want not to deal with having X11 installed at all. Without a specific description of the situation, my _guess_ is that the texlive vs. texlive-nox issue could be due to some reverse-dependent package which declares a dependency which encompasses both options, but really shouldn't if they're not functionally identical for its purposes. Tweaking dependencies is certainly another option which will reduce the use of -nox variants to an appropriate scope. -- Alexander Hansen, Ph.D. Fink User Liaison My package updates: http://finkakh.wordpress.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shape the Mobile Experience: Free Subscription Software experts and developers: Be at the forefront of tech innovation. Intel(R) Software Adrenaline delivers strategic insight and game-changing conversations that shape the rapidly evolving mobile landscape. Sign up now. http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=63431311&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Fink-devel mailing list Fink-devel@lists.sourceforge.net List archive: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.os.apple.fink.devel Subscription management: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fink-devel
