Is it safe to set -xattr for portage?

[qpl]

Hi,

I set gentoo up to work on windows subsystem for linux (WSL) and so far so good except for slow emerge speed.
The system is basically amd64 without multilib.

As tmpfs is currently simulated on hard drive (C:\), I am trying to move portage temp folder to ramdisk (set in windows as a separate drive). However, the installation raises error with message

[krinn]

your answer is useflags.
devs don't do a useflag in a package which you must have it, if it must use xattr, it won't have the xattr useflag, but xattr dependency.

so you can set -xattr and :
* if a package need xattr dep, it will install it and use it.
* if a package need it but as an option, but the option is force because of another package or whatever, portage will complain for that package with a package[xattr] kind of output.

as you see, it's safe, portage will warn you if someone do really need the useflag and you have set -xattr globally.

[mv]

The main reason for FEATURES=xattr was that certain files needed to be marked as exceptions for a pax kernel.
Now since pax/grsecurity is practically dead for normal users, this feature is probably not needed anymore.
I am not aware of any packages which really sets xattr values except for marking pax exceptions.
So the short answer to your question is very likely: Yes, it is safe to use FEATURES=-xattr. (Of course, I will not give a guarantee of any sort...)

[szatox]

FEATURE=-xattr is a must-have on a filesystem that does not support xattr. Some packages fail to build otherwise.
It seems to be safe. My tests weren't very extensive, but I didn't encounter any issues with it.