Marius Mauch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted [EMAIL PROTECTED], excerpted below, on Tue, 01 Jan 2008 06:09:28 +0100:
> Most of the time when I see complaints about the description of USE > flags (I'm fully aware of those) the issue isn't the format, just that > noone else has come up with a better description. There are, I believe, two complaints, but one you don't see often as many don't think it's currently possible with a global USE flag (and possible but seldom done with local flags). The first complaint is poor descriptions in general. "foo - Adds foo support" just doesn't cut it. (See USE=glw, for instance. USE=gif's "Adds GIF image support" is at least somewhat better, saying GIF is an image format, at least. I haven't a clue what libGlw does, except that it says requires mesa, which I know is 3D, so I suppose it's related to that, but what if someone doesn't know what mesa is?) This seems to be the one you are addressing. The second complaint, a frustration I often find myself experiencing, is that particularly with global flags, it's difficult to see exactly what they do in a particular package without actually seeing what the ebuild does. Does it add the dependency and link against it? Does it install example code and/or documentation for it? Does it install bindings for it? Is it build (static) against the included version vs using the system copy? Does it not change what's supported at all, only the library/codec implementation used to handle it (the case with mp3/lame/ whatever sometimes)? Etc. It'd sure be nice to be able to run an euse -i flag and get the details of what flag actually does for various packages, or euse -i flag package, and get the info for just that package. It'd be /real/ nice if emerge had a -vv or -vvv mode, that spit out what all the use flags actually did for those packages, at the detail level of the questions above. If whatever proposal makes that easier, I say go for it. =8^) -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
