Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
Maciej Mrozowski wrote: Hi there! Resulting from discussion during last Gentoo KDE team meeting taking place 22 Oct 2009 at #gentoo-meetings (summary fill be available soon), having Gentoo GNOME team representative, it's been decided to go ahead with splitting desktop profile to DE-specific subprofiles, to avoid bloat and provide desktop specific separation which should result in desktop subprofiles being actually practical. It's been proposed to: - keep 'desktop' profile but strip it from any desktop specific features and settings, making it default recommended choice for anyone using non-KDE and non-GNOME desktop environment, yet avoiding USE flags bloat. Any other DE is free to join and create own DE-specific subprofile if needed. - create 'KDE' (or 'kde') and 'GNOME' (or 'gnome') subprofiles within 'desktop' profile and move any desktop specific things there. This should in theory allow us to not add 'recommended' IUSE defaults to desktop specific packages, but keep those settings in profile - making profile effectively 'out of the box' solution for those who need it. If you have any comments, suggestions, important notices regarding this change, please keep discussion in gentoo-desktop mailing list. Thanks As a user and someone who provides support on IRC regularly, I think extra profiles in this manner is unnecessary complexity. At a guestimate there's going to be less than 10 USE flags difference between the profiles. (New) users already find it confusing what the differences between profiles are (the number of users I've seen using a developer profile because they do some programming, for example*) and frankly I think having these extra profiles will make some users think you can only have one of kde or gnome. Why are we talking about out of the box with a distro that doesn't even come with a pre-compile kernel? Or X installed? Gentoo isn't an out of the box distro. If disabling use flags is considered too confusing for users, maybe the entire system needs to be revised. * Why is the developer profile even shown on eselect profile? Wouldn't it be better to keep unsupported profiles off this list. Surely Gentoo devs can cope with setting their profile manually in favor of a little sanity preservation for the rest of us?
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
AllenJB wrote: * Why is the developer profile even shown on eselect profile? Wouldn't it be better to keep unsupported profiles off this list. Surely Gentoo devs can cope with setting their profile manually in favor of a little sanity preservation for the rest of us? It's not only for Gentoo developers, but for /Software/ developers in general. IMHO.
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
Samuli Suominen wrote: AllenJB wrote: * Why is the developer profile even shown on eselect profile? Wouldn't it be better to keep unsupported profiles off this list. Surely Gentoo devs can cope with setting their profile manually in favor of a little sanity preservation for the rest of us? It's not only for Gentoo developers, but for /Software/ developers in general. IMHO. General software developers should have the following features enabled? - test (all test suites) - stricter (horribly strict portage handling) - digest (ignore package digests) - cvs (not even documented in man make.conf) - sign (gpg key signing for cvs manifest commits) As well as the infamous I_KNOW_WHAT_I_AM_DOING=yes Certainly test, stricter and digest are all known to me to cause issues for anyone who doesn't understand what they do and why. AllenJB
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
On Saturday 24 October 2009, Maciej Mrozowski wrote: Resulting from discussion during last Gentoo KDE team meeting taking place 22 Oct 2009 at #gentoo-meetings (summary fill be available soon), having Gentoo GNOME team representative, it's been decided to go ahead with splitting desktop profile to DE-specific subprofiles, to avoid bloat and provide desktop specific separation which should result in desktop subprofiles being actually practical. (From your email) I fail to see the advantage as other commenters have pointed out. What problem is there that cannot be solved using dependencies and kde/gnome use flags? This decision just seems to increase the split between KDE and Gnome and that does not reflect user's realities: They use both. Gnome desktop + kmail, k3b, yakuake or KDE with evince, etc. Why add one more decision to make where the result is unclear (and honestly, profile documentation is almost zero)? Robert signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:11:38 +0200 Samuli Suominen ssuomi...@gentoo.org wrote: AllenJB wrote: * Why is the developer profile even shown on eselect profile? Wouldn't it be better to keep unsupported profiles off this list. Surely Gentoo devs can cope with setting their profile manually in favor of a little sanity preservation for the rest of us? It's not only for Gentoo developers, but for /Software/ developers in general. IMHO. Uhh . . . no, it's not. A long time ago I talked with the folks who created the profile, and that's why I put the following into our profile documentation. This is seen in all handbooks: note The cdeveloper/c subprofile is specifically for Gentoo Linux development tasks. It is enot/e meant to help set up general development environments. /note . . . so no, it's not for general software development; it's to help out the hundreds of developers and users who are performing Gentoo development activities. Developing Gentoo is not like writing some random piece of software. This profile is for our special requirements, nothing else. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
Having recently installed gentoo, I can see hwo it could get confusing with DE specific profiles. Especially as a number of users that are new to linux might very well have no idea what DE they're going to use. And the same can be said for users who decided to run ubuntu to try linux and then decide to go further. having to choose a profile, gives less time for the wavering user, if you ask me. Particularly because a number might well believe that having a DE specific profile would restrict them to use such profiles. Instead I'd say it's a better idea to give a suggestion of useflags in the handbook for the different choices of DE's. And also I don't thin it's relevant to talk about gentoo in relation to an out-of-box experience. To me it seems to be counterproductive, being that by creating an out-of-box experience would, intially at least, make choices on the users behalf, which is against gentoo's philosophy as I understand it. The way I understand Gentoo, is it is a distro to allow freedom of choice, whether it being a choice of having a graphical interface or a choice of which graphical interface. And to aim for an out-of-box experience, is counteracting that freedom, or rather, only allowing a choice of removing it after the decision has already been made for you. I don't think the developer profile should be removed however. There could very well be users installing gentoo, with the purpose of getting involved with developing gentoo. So the profile should be there, and it is well enough documented as being geared towards developing gentoo, and not developing in general. (New) users already find it confusing what the differences between profiles are (the number of users I've seen using a developer profile because they do some programming, for example*) and frankly I think having these extra profiles will make some users think you can only have one of kde or gnome. Why are we talking about out of the box with a distro that doesn't even come with a pre-compile kernel? Or X installed? Gentoo isn't an out of the box distro. If disabling use flags is considered too confusing for users, maybe the entire system needs to be revised. * Why is the developer profile even shown on eselect profile? Wouldn't it be better to keep unsupported profiles off this list. Surely Gentoo devs can cope with setting their profile manually in favor of a little sanity preservation for the rest of us?
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 21:42, Zeerak Waseem zeera...@gmail.com wrote: having to choose a profile, gives less time for the wavering user Why all the fuss? No-one said we're removing the plain desktop profile, we're simply adding *more* options. If you want generic DE options pre-enabled, choose the desktop profile. If you *know* you only need KDE as your DE, choose KDE, If you *know* you only need GNOME as your DE, choose GNOME, If you need both or can't decide, either choose Desktop and add the USE flags yourself or use both profiles together. Beats enabling default USE flags without asking you :) -- Alex || wired Gentoo Dev www.linuxized.com
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
Le 24/10/2009 15:42, Maciej Mrozowski a écrit : If you have any comments, suggestions, important notices regarding this change, please keep discussion in gentoo-desktop mailing list. IMHO, we shouldn't even have desktop/server subprofiles to begin with. I've always considered Gentoo to be an opt-in distro where after a successful install, you end up with a bash prompt and a _means_ of installing new packages. Finding out what USE flags mean and do is part of the Gentoo experience. If we were doing spin-off distros like Ubuntu and Fedora do, then subprofiles would be fine, but we're not. So with my X hat on, I won't be adding any X subprofile. And with my (former?) Gnome hat on, I vote against any gnome subprofile. Cheers, Rémi
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
Alex Alexander wrote: On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 21:42, Zeerak Waseem zeera...@gmail.com wrote: having to choose a profile, gives less time for the wavering user Why all the fuss? No-one said we're removing the plain desktop profile, we're simply adding *more* options. If you want generic DE options pre-enabled, choose the desktop profile. If you *know* you only need KDE as your DE, choose KDE, If you *know* you only need GNOME as your DE, choose GNOME, If you need both or can't decide, either choose Desktop and add the USE flags yourself or use both profiles together. Beats enabling default USE flags without asking you :) +1. This is adding options not taking away. I like this idea since you can still do it the old way with no problems at all. Plus this will make my USE line shorter. It has to help a little at least. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
On Monday 26 of October 2009 21:06:04 Rémi Cardona wrote: IMHO, we shouldn't even have desktop/server subprofiles to begin with. I've always considered Gentoo to be an opt-in distro where after a successful install, you end up with a bash prompt and a _means_ of installing new packages. Finding out what USE flags mean and do is part of the Gentoo experience. If we were doing spin-off distros like Ubuntu and Fedora do, then subprofiles would be fine, but we're not. So with my X hat on, I won't be adding any X subprofile. And with my (former?) Gnome hat on, I vote against any gnome subprofile. I most cases I agree with you. To be more specific - desktop profile should be annihilated because it's a joke. It's impractical and bloated. Splitting it to kde and gnome is just nicer way of annihilating it. However, considering amount of confused users on IRC and forums, especially after KDE4 stabilization and Qt4 default USE flags change, and considering no automatic USE flags management provided by portage (for example via -- interactive mode) - there's no way to make it easier to use. Making something easier to use does not necessarily need to mean less flexible. It we're to provide mostly learning experience and not practical solutions, why not rename Gentoo to Eduentoo :) And I fail to see *any* point in forcing users to learn Gentoo internals (sic! like USE flags). What else? Ebuild syntax so that they're able to get to know what particular global USE flag is responsible for, when someone forgot (or decided not to) describe it in metadata.xml even when semantics is different? Maybe I sound too harsh here, but that's because I'm not ideologist - I'm practical man. -- regards MM signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
Maciej Mrozowski reave...@gmail.com writes:
And I fail to see *any* point in forcing users to learn Gentoo internals
(sic!
like USE flags). What else? Ebuild syntax so that they're able to get to know
what particular global USE flag is responsible for, when someone forgot (or
decided not to) describe it in metadata.xml even when semantics is different?
Maybe I sound too harsh here, but that's because I'm not ideologist - I'm
practical man.
If the point of the distribution is – like some other distros – to have
a high-functioning, high-polish, well-integrated system and desktop with
a minimal amount of end-user knowledge, then, yes, the goal should be
for end-users to not need to know about such things.
But profiles, make.conf, USE flags (especially!), elog, c. … these
things are not internals, but instead the interface the package
manager presents to its user. They are the language the user is
expected to speak in to interact with her system. The trade off for
doing this is more and finer-grained control over the system, and the
reason people choose Gentoo. Even ebuilds themselves are (usually)
sufficiently non-magical that I think they could qualify in some
circumstances, though that quickly starts to get into eclasses, PM
behavior and real internals.
--
...jsled
http://asynchronous.org/ - a=jsled; b=asynchronous.org; echo $...@${b}
pgpiBiYJOz5SX.pgp
Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
On Monday 26 October 2009 21:06:04 Rémi Cardona wrote: Le 24/10/2009 15:42, Maciej Mrozowski a écrit : If you have any comments, suggestions, important notices regarding this change, please keep discussion in gentoo-desktop mailing list. IMHO, we shouldn't even have desktop/server subprofiles to begin with. I've always considered Gentoo to be an opt-in distro where after a successful install, you end up with a bash prompt and a _means_ of installing new packages. Finding out what USE flags mean and do is part of the Gentoo experience. If we were doing spin-off distros like Ubuntu and Fedora do, then subprofiles would be fine, but we're not. So hmm, let me make few hypothetical statements. You see package foo-libs/baz has USE=pic that is not set by default in profile. It's well documented in metadata.xml which says disable optimized assembly code that is not PIC friendly. So as an ordinary user you set it in your make.conf because it may be helpful. Then you want to install another package with USE=pic but you note this useflag for this package means Force shared libraries to be built as PIC (this is slower). Of course you don't want your programs run slower, do you? So you disable useflag in make.conf or package.use. This situation may lead user to reinstall half of his system, because some packages with USE=- pic force foo-libs/baz[-pic] and foo-libs/bar[-pic] too. You end up with nothing after some time spent on reading metadata.xml, recompilling foo, bar, baz... just because you were forced to have a choice. IMO profiles are very good solution for every user. Especially for those that don't know what every use flag means and they (profiles) should have at least base useflags set. And if base, why not most of useful? They are only option. User can alwasy disable it (eg. -kde if he wants gnome, -gnome if he wants kde or - both if he uses openbox). My $0,02. -- Cheers Dawid Węgliński
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
But instead of just giving the user the answer, wouldn't it be more appropriate, as far as understanding useflags and their uses goes, to give users lists of useflags and what they do. Ie a list of base use flags for say, kde, and also what basic useflags to disable, and a suggestion to read the descriptions of the useflags to add what's necessary. As the handbook currently does. I think with the documentation, one should have enough information to assess what useflags are desired for one's system. And then I'd suggest looking at the packages and the need for various use flags individually, if you want to. But the documentation provides basic useflags for running your system. But again, this is just my take on it :-) On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:08:30 +0100, Dawid Węgliński c...@gentoo.org wrote: On Monday 26 October 2009 21:06:04 Rémi Cardona wrote: Le 24/10/2009 15:42, Maciej Mrozowski a écrit : If you have any comments, suggestions, important notices regarding this change, please keep discussion in gentoo-desktop mailing list. IMHO, we shouldn't even have desktop/server subprofiles to begin with. I've always considered Gentoo to be an opt-in distro where after a successful install, you end up with a bash prompt and a _means_ of installing new packages. Finding out what USE flags mean and do is part of the Gentoo experience. If we were doing spin-off distros like Ubuntu and Fedora do, then subprofiles would be fine, but we're not. So hmm, let me make few hypothetical statements. You see package foo-libs/baz has USE=pic that is not set by default in profile. It's well documented in metadata.xml which says disable optimized assembly code that is not PIC friendly. So as an ordinary user you set it in your make.conf because it may be helpful. Then you want to install another package with USE=pic but you note this useflag for this package means Force shared libraries to be built as PIC (this is slower). Of course you don't want your programs run slower, do you? So you disable useflag in make.conf or package.use. This situation may lead user to reinstall half of his system, because some packages with USE=- pic force foo-libs/baz[-pic] and foo-libs/bar[-pic] too. You end up with nothing after some time spent on reading metadata.xml, recompilling foo, bar, baz... just because you were forced to have a choice. IMO profiles are very good solution for every user. Especially for those that don't know what every use flag means and they (profiles) should have at least base useflags set. And if base, why not most of useful? They are only option. User can alwasy disable it (eg. -kde if he wants gnome, -gnome if he wants kde or - both if he uses openbox). My $0,02.
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:52:04 +0200, Alex Alexander wi...@gentoo.org wrote: On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 21:42, Zeerak Waseem zeera...@gmail.com wrote: having to choose a profile, gives less time for the wavering user Why all the fuss? No-one said we're removing the plain desktop profile, we're simply adding *more* options. If you want generic DE options pre-enabled, choose the desktop profile. If you *know* you only need KDE as your DE, choose KDE, If you *know* you only need GNOME as your DE, choose GNOME, If you need both or can't decide, either choose Desktop and add the USE flags yourself or use both profiles together. Beats enabling default USE flags without asking you :) My personal definition of bloat: to add complexity for no real gain on features. Adding a profile just because it's a cool way to do the same thing that *one* single USE flag can do is a nonsense *to me*. I am already hearing all the new (and old) users asking what the damn difference between the flag and the profile is. It's a cool way to create extra traffic and confusion for absolutely no benefit. But hey, maybe it's just that my old brain can't cope with the coolness :) -- Jesús Guerrero
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
On Tuesday 27 October 2009 00:26:38 Zeerak Waseem wrote:
But instead of just giving the user the answer, wouldn't it be more
appropriate, as far as understanding useflags and their uses goes, to give
users lists of useflags and what they do. Ie a list of base use flags for
say, kde, and also what basic useflags to disable, and a suggestion to
read the descriptions of the useflags to add what's necessary. As the
handbook currently does. I think with the documentation, one should have
enough information to assess what useflags are desired for one's system.
And then I'd suggest looking at the packages and the need for various use
flags individually, if you want to. But the documentation provides basic
useflags for running your system.
But again, this is just my take on it :-)
No. Handbook doesn't provide information on every useflag. For this you have
use{.local.,.}desc in PORTDIR/profiles/. And again, if you missread my previous
post - there's no way to standarize *every* useflag and tell user flag foo
does
bar. It's developer who should decide on behalf of user what's the best
configuration. And user has always choice to disable some useflags and create
his own configuration for his requirements.
--
Cheers
Dawid Węgliński
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
On Tuesday 27 October 2009 01:34:55 Dawid Węgliński wrote:
On Tuesday 27 October 2009 00:26:38 Zeerak Waseem wrote:
But instead of just giving the user the answer, wouldn't it be more
appropriate, as far as understanding useflags and their uses goes, to
give users lists of useflags and what they do. Ie a list of base use
flags for say, kde, and also what basic useflags to disable, and a
suggestion to read the descriptions of the useflags to add what's
necessary. As the handbook currently does. I think with the
documentation, one should have enough information to assess what useflags
are desired for one's system. And then I'd suggest looking at the
packages and the need for various use flags individually, if you want to.
But the documentation provides basic useflags for running your system.
But again, this is just my take on it :-)
No. Handbook doesn't provide information on every useflag. For this you
have use{.local.,.}desc in PORTDIR/profiles/. And again, if you missread
my previous post - there's no way to standarize *every* useflag and tell
user flag foo does bar. It's developer who should decide on behalf of
user what's the best configuration. And user has always choice to disable
some useflags and create his own configuration for his requirements.
s...@best configurat...@best minimal configuration@
--
Cheers
Dawid Węgliński
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
On Sunday 25 October 2009 03:41:10 Jesús Guerrero wrote: I fail to see how this is simpler and/or more versatile than simply using USE=kde gnome, USE=-kde gnome, USE=-gnome kde or USE=-gnome -kde. What exactly are we going to gain by adding yet another level of complexity where two simple USE flags suffice? you've missed some like USE=eds. i hate that damn thing, but it really only makes sense in a GNOME environment. -mike signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
On Sat, 24 Oct 2009 15:42:17 +0200, Maciej Mrozowski reave...@gmail.com wrote: Hi there! Resulting from discussion during last Gentoo KDE team meeting taking place 22 Oct 2009 at #gentoo-meetings (summary fill be available soon), having Gentoo GNOME team representative, it's been decided to go ahead with splitting desktop profile to DE-specific subprofiles, to avoid bloat and provide desktop specific separation which should result in desktop subprofiles being actually practical. It's been proposed to: - keep 'desktop' profile but strip it from any desktop specific features and settings, making it default recommended choice for anyone using non-KDE and non-GNOME desktop environment, yet avoiding USE flags bloat. Any other DE is free to join and create own DE-specific subprofile if needed. - create 'KDE' (or 'kde') and 'GNOME' (or 'gnome') subprofiles within 'desktop' profile and move any desktop specific things there. This should in theory allow us to not add 'recommended' IUSE defaults to desktop specific packages, but keep those settings in profile - making profile effectively 'out of the box' solution for those who need it. If you have any comments, suggestions, important notices regarding this change, please keep discussion in gentoo-desktop mailing list. I fail to see how this is simpler and/or more versatile than simply using USE=kde gnome, USE=-kde gnome, USE=-gnome kde or USE=-gnome -kde. What exactly are we going to gain by adding yet another level of complexity where two simple USE flags suffice? I don't think it's even more elegant, and in the worst case, it makes the things uselessly complicated when you want to use both desktops. We could also add an image subprofile, for those wanting USE=jpeg svg png tiff etc. Or an fb profile, for those only wanting USE=-X directfb. It's a nonsense, I know. The desktop subprofiles are also a nonsense to me :p Just my opinion of course :) -- Jesús Guerrero
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
On Sat, 24 Oct 2009 09:00:03 -0500 Jeremy Olexa darks...@gentoo.org wrote: Just so it is clear and there aren't any questions in the future. The XFCE team maintains a set of recommended global use flags in our docs[1] (maintained by Josh (nightmorph)). So, whatever direction this ends up, xfce will not be going down that same road. The x11-wm/musca team has voted unanimously to follow the same path so that XFCE won't feel lonely. THERE WILL BE NO MUSCA SUB-PROFILE. Regards, jer ;)
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
2009/10/24 Maciej Mrozowski reave...@gmail.com: If you have any comments, suggestions, important notices regarding this change, please keep discussion in gentoo-desktop mailing list. What about people who like to install both gnome and kde on their systems? (Perhaps different users on the computer use different DEs) It probably won't be a problem in the short term (people can just select one profile and add the missing USE-flags to make.conf). But it /might/ get unwieldy in the future if more USE-flags and USE_EXPAND-ed variables make their way into the DE-specific profiles. Since multiple inheritance is not worth the work, I would suggest each project team maintain some minimal documentation in their doc space about the USE-flags and USE_EXPAND-ed variables enabled in each profile. -- ~Nirbheek Chauhan Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
Maciej Mrozowski wrote: Hi there! Resulting from discussion during last Gentoo KDE team meeting taking place 22 Oct 2009 at #gentoo-meetings (summary fill be available soon), having Gentoo GNOME team representative, it's been decided to go ahead with splitting desktop profile to DE-specific subprofiles, to avoid bloat and provide desktop specific separation which should result in desktop subprofiles being actually practical. It's been proposed to: - keep 'desktop' profile but strip it from any desktop specific features and settings, making it default recommended choice for anyone using non-KDE and non-GNOME desktop environment, yet avoiding USE flags bloat. Any other DE is free to join and create own DE-specific subprofile if needed. Hi, Just so it is clear and there aren't any questions in the future. The XFCE team maintains a set of recommended global use flags in our docs[1] (maintained by Josh (nightmorph)). So, whatever direction this ends up, xfce will not be going down that same road. Additionally, One cool thing about Gentoo is that you *can* have more than one DE installed. We don't have things like KGentoo =P I hope this profile thing doesn't make it harder for end users to use GNOME and KDE at the same time. -Jeremy [1]: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/xfce-config.xml - create 'KDE' (or 'kde') and 'GNOME' (or 'gnome') subprofiles within 'desktop' profile and move any desktop specific things there. This should in theory allow us to not add 'recommended' IUSE defaults to desktop specific packages, but keep those settings in profile - making profile effectively 'out of the box' solution for those who need it. If you have any comments, suggestions, important notices regarding this change, please keep discussion in gentoo-desktop mailing list. Thanks
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
On Saturday 24 of October 2009 16:00:03 Jeremy Olexa wrote: Just so it is clear and there aren't any questions in the future. The XFCE team maintains a set of recommended global use flags in our docs[1] (maintained by Josh (nightmorph)). So, whatever direction this ends up, xfce will not be going down that same road. Well, if XFCE 'satisfying use deps' USE flags are not excessive, I think they could stay in desktop (parent) profile of course as desktop profile is meant for general use desktop. This would address some parts of Nirbheek's concern. Additionally, One cool thing about Gentoo is that you *can* have more than one DE installed. We don't have things like KGentoo =P I hope this profile thing doesn't make it harder for end users to use GNOME and KDE at the same time. That's the 'edge' case we encounter. Of course splitting desktop profile *will* make it harder for them to have GNOME and KDE at the same time. But, to be clear, we're talking here mainly about default USE flags (not gnome-base/* entries in package.mask in KDE subprofile... hmm, jmbsvicetto? worth considering... ;) ) Splitting profiles is to provide out of the box desktop specific solutions (because that's what majority uses afaik, though I don't have any poll to back my words), not to prevent anyone from mixing things - those may just need the same package.use/make.conf effort to set it up (mainly to satisfy USE deps, as one can put recommended USE flags in +EAPI-1 IUSE in desktop environment ebuilds after all). -- regards MM signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Splitting desktop profile to KDE and GNOME
Nirbheek Chauhan wrote: 2009/10/24 Maciej Mrozowski reave...@gmail.com: If you have any comments, suggestions, important notices regarding this change, please keep discussion in gentoo-desktop mailing list. What about people who like to install both gnome and kde on their systems? (Perhaps different users on the computer use different DEs) It probably won't be a problem in the short term (people can just select one profile and add the missing USE-flags to make.conf). But it /might/ get unwieldy in the future if more USE-flags and USE_EXPAND-ed variables make their way into the DE-specific profiles. Since multiple inheritance is not worth the work, I would suggest each project team maintain some minimal documentation in their doc space about the USE-flags and USE_EXPAND-ed variables enabled in each profile. You can make your /etc/profile a real profile instead of symlink and using multiple inheritance inherit both GNOME and KDE. The instructions are in man 5 portage. Regards, Petteri signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
