On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 10:36 AM, Michael Orlitzky <m...@gentoo.org> wrote: > > Why does dev-java/icedtea try to pull in GTK (and thus X) > on a headless server? That stuff belongs in a desktop profile, not in > the base one.
The base profile isn't "headless server" - it is just generic. Somebody could create a headless server profile that set USE=-X and the necessary tweaks when necessary to handle specific packages. Having mix-ins would help with this by reducing the costs of adding profiles so that we can offer more choices like this. Users can of course set USE=-* if they really want a minimal system, and build up from there. However, a minimal profile would probably be a better solution if somebody wanted to create one. The problem is that if you treat the base profile as "minimal" then you lose the ability to maintain an upstream-default profile (unless you end up with a huge package.use.force/mask file which IMO is the wrong place to put stuff like this). I think that upstream-defaults is a more sensible base than something intended to be minimal. It is far easier to let all the packages specify defaults individually and then make large-scale adjustments (up or down) to these, than to try to achieve a "default" position from one that just has everything turned off. -- Rich
