On Tue, Apr 2, 2019 at 4:31 PM Peter Humphrey <[email protected]> wrote: > > I'm installing a new xfce4 system on a 4-core 32-bit Celeron box, and portage > is insisting that I install encryption software, whether I want it or not. I > don't. > > The requirement seems to come from this line in the libblockdev ebuild: > > IUSE="bcache +cryptsetup device-mapper dmraid doc escrow lvm kbd test +tools > vdo" > > Can anyone tell me why a utility library is imposing both cryptsetup and raid > on me, neither of which I either need or want? >
You're misreading "IUSE" IUSE is a list of the USE flags an ebuild SUPPORTS. So, libblockdev optionally supports cryptsetup, dmraid, lvm, and so on. Some of those flags have + signs in front of them. That means that at a package level these are defaulted to being on. This can be overridden by you or the profile, but unless you explicitly set -cryptsetup in either place you're going to have cryptsetup enabled in the ebuild. The others default to being off, which means you won't get those features unless either you or a profile explicitly add a use flag like dmraid to USE=. I won't get into why there are various layers of defaults. They aren't perfect, but there are a bunch of reasons it is done this way. The defaults are going to be what generally "just works" for people using the package in combination with some profile. However, you can definitely override them, unless some other package depends on one of these flags being enabled (in which case emerge will complain loudly). Just set USE="-cryptsetup -dmraid ..." and turn off whatever other flags you object to. Of course you should understand the implications, but these particular flags probably aren't really used for anything unless you are actually using LVM/LUKS/etc. I'd be careful about just turning off random flags unless you understand what they do. There are those who set -* in their make.conf and then go whitelisting whatever they need. IMO that is a lot of pain for not a lot of gain, except maybe in odd niches or for those with OCD... :) -- Rich
