On 02/02/2017 10:06 AM, Kristian Fiskerstrand wrote:
On 02/02/2017 03:11 PM, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
Can we discourage IUSE defaults except for #1 and #2? I'm equally guilty
of #3 and #4, but I now regret them. I would also like to see
explanations in metadata.xml of why +flags are on by default.
This presumes that the goal is minimal system in all cases, rather than
a good user experience for inter alia a desktop system or a
server-system. If a user requires a minimal system for whatever reason
(s)he is likely more prepared to understand the choices than the average
user.
Not so sure about his postulate.
As one who defaults to minimal systems (yes even on a 8-core 32G ram
system), I'd like to offer a bit of insight. Please keep in mind that
in my experiences, there are probably many more folks creating ebuilds
than gentoo has devs; so as logical and streamlined and coherent as
possible means a necessary focal point is the minimized gentoo system build.
Some folks need a minimal install because of their hardware constraints.
Some folks want a minimal install because statistically that's the
easiest way to get a new (rolling) distro working, especially minus a
heavy WM, like KDE. Due to a lack of a streamlined installer processes
for gentoo, there is a lot of 'monkey see monkey do' approaches to
repetitively installing gentoo in the wild, so a minimal focus is
better. (KISS is king).
Some folks want a minimal install, because it's fairly trivial (for
identical platformed system) to then copy over bin packages or compile
in additional packages (via the world file) and make the system
whatever they want it to be. It can also be returned to a minimal state,
by just removing these secondary packages that converted the minimal
system into something more full featured.
Some folks want a minimal arm system that is in the footprint of a small
(arm-based) laptop, so it is quite similar to Single Board Computer arm
systems as possible; ultimately trying to keep a variety of arm systems
as similar as possible.
Some folks have a variety of embedded gentoo systems, and the closer the
minimal system is to being identical (via package sets) the more logical
their schema can be on management (think IoT).
I could go on and on all all, clusters, firewalls kiosk etc etc. My
point is a minimal system is the foundational building block for gentoo
and as such it is like a construction dock for building up all sorts, if
not all gentoo systems.
How this affects re-organization of documentation on IUSE and related
issues is of great curiosity to me. So, when my work is complete (or at
least enough to share) there shall be many stage-4 minimal gentoo images
to install from and go from there. So as much as all issues can be
minimized, standardized, documented and look like other arches, the "mo
better" imo.
hth,
James
