PLEASE, a list of USE variables with descriptions!

[Jebus]

I would LOVE to have a list of all USE variables with short descriptions of each. As it is I had to do google searches on what each of the listed ones do, and there are lots I am sure I don't even know about.

Love the distro though, good work!
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The only difference between a brown-noser and a shithead is depth perception.

[fatty]

I found that the default USE settings found in the make.default file result in some ridiculous dependcies. For instance, when I wanted to emerge vim, it was claiming that xfree, gnome-libs, esd, and a bunch of other crazy packages were needed before I could install vim! I found the install doc to be less than helpful in explaining how to correct this, and I only found my answer when I visited #gentoo (Thanks nitro!)
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I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me.

-Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

[Nitro]

I think we should have a definition of the USE settings and several make.defaults, maybe have something like:

make.defaults.laptop
make.defaults.server
make.defaults.server
make.defaults.minimal

I remember that Gentoo RC6 or something had a list of what the USE settings meant.
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- Kyle Manna

Please, please SEARCH before posting.

There are three kinds of people in the world: those who can count, and those who can't.

[Jebus]

Yeh i like that - perhaps base, gnome and kde base make files, and then we can add things like OSS to them if we need.
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The only difference between a brown-noser and a shithead is depth perception.

[fatty]

I hate to keep bringing up Sorcerer GNU Linux, but the way they handle dependencies is to find all deps for a particular package you want to install, rank them as either "required" or "optional", and then, before any downloading or compiling begins, asks the user if they would like to install the required/optional dependency with a one-sentence description of what it actually is/does. If the user does not respond at all, there is a default answer (yes for required, no for optional) that gets entered after a (configurable) wait time.

This sort of system would solve several problems with Gentoo:
1. when installing simple apps like vim, the default USE settings require X and lots of other crazy apps as "dependencies" - this way, the user could opt out of optional ones they did not want to install.
2. given the automatic timeout nature of the questions, this could be implemented to provide a more automatic install, where if no answer is given, the most common choice is selected at the end of the timeout period - or the user could even set the timeout variable to zero for a completely automatic install.

From what I have seen, Gentoo solves many problems that Sorcerer has, but there is also much that Gentoo can benefit from by taking a good look at the way Sorcerer interacts with the user.
_________________
I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me.

-Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

[Ozymandias]

[twfox]

[HooL]

SDL is multimedia stuff.. ( http://www.libsdl.org/ )
Graphic/sound libraries I think.. some games are based on those.. see apps-games

[Guest]

-sdl uses the sdl libraries which are multiplatform, so your programs wil be source compatible. Say you want to make a game for windows mac an linux, use sdl ..

further more, I changed /etc/make.globals but now I know I should have used /etc/make.profile/make.default

unfortunately I spend many hours compiling qt 3 and qt2 and arts and stuff ..

greetz Ozy

[pcgod]

[freefall]

There's a list of USE variables in /usr/portage/profiles/use.desc.

I don't think it's an "official" list yet, and not all variables have a description, but it's a start.

[g2boojum]

[quote="fatty"]I hate to keep bringing up Sorcerer GNU Linux, but the way they handle dependencies is to find all deps for a particular package you want to install, rank them as either "required" or "optional", and then, before any downloading or compiling begins, asks the user if they would like to install the required/optional dependency with a one-sentence description of what it actually is/does. If the user does not respond at all, there is a default answer (yes for required, no for optional) that gets entered after a (configurable) wait time.


We're working on a reasonable list of USE variables right now. The reason we don't use the Sorcerer approach is due to the Gentoo design philosophy that emerge/ebuild is _not_ interactive. Some reasonable method of interrogating ebuilds for their optional functionality is required, though, and we're working on that. (You can follow bug # 1771 if you like.)

[moonlite]

how about just adding a --interactive mode that is similar to the approach sorcery linux does it... in that way gentoo users CAN use an interactive mode if they like it... i like the noniteractive mode very much... its like great to be able to just do an emerge gnome without having even x installed and just go and watch a movie or something....

[tvon]

[hazelnut]

Wouldn't the best thing be to have a way to control the ebuild? Not an interactive mode - not just because of the time/effort to add it, but because it would loose the 'press button and come back (much) later' propery that it the only way mere mortals (<2GHz CPU) can use portage!

So, some way of disabling some of the dependencies marked by adding a cmd line option (e.g. emerge -nodep unwanted1,unwanted2 mypackage)

Obviously very likely to fail if user doesn't know what they are doing, but I decided not to do vim last night because of the huge list of deps... must work out the USE vars soon!

Andy

[dArkMaGE]

everyone rejoice, as of today they just posed a list of all the USE vars with much explanation on the gentoo.org website