On Sunday 30 August 2009 18:09:08 Harry Putnam wrote: > Stroller <strol...@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> writes: > > Actually, I think there used to be an mplayer USE flag that behaved in > > exactly this way - it was associated with RealPlayer &/or their > > codecs. > > > > However I would assume this to be the exception rather than the rule, > > and one would generally assume that USE="x y z" adds support for x, y, > > z. > > Maybe not all that exceptional... consider the case of users who don't > run gnome desktop but want certain gnome tools... would they not leave > gnome at `-gnome'?
You have it wrong. "USE=<thing>" is supposed to add *support* for <thing>, not necessarily *install* something called <thing>. Whatever <thing> means in the context of a specific ebuild depends on what the ebuild is for, and different ebuilds with the same USE flag may have entirely different DEPEND stanzas, depending on how the package is written and what it needs to build/run. mplayer support for realplayer was a right royal cockup. The only thing it could ever have meant was that mplayer could play Real videos. But the way it was documented, users couldn't figure out if this would install the binary realplayer, provide support for real from some other party, or do an entirely different third action. USE=gnome does not necessarily install all of gnome. That would depend on what specific packages using that flag you have installed. They have their own DEPENDS, and the sum total of those is what you get if you set the flag. if you want certain gnome tools but not the gnome desktop, then you would leave USE at -gnome and emerge the gnome tools. Which means that everything else you have that could support gnome, will be built without gnome support (with the exception of packages written by folk who don't know how to do compile-time configuration). What's so exceptional about that? -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
