I have a long USE variable (starts with "-*", so I enter stuff manually. At one point it got to be something like...
USE="-* 3dnow X a52 aac alsa bitmap-fonts bzip2 cdr dga dio divx4linux dri dvd dvdr dvdread encode exif ffmpeg flac fortran gb gif gtk2 imlib jpeg maildir mikmod mime mmap mmx mng mp3 mpeg ncurses nptl nptlonly nsplugin offensive ogg opengl plotutils png posix quicktime readline sdl sharedmem slang sockets sse sse2 theora threads tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts vcd vorbis win32codecs wmf xpm xv zlib" BLEAGH! I've now broken it up into logical groupings... USE_cpu="3dnow mmx sse sse2" USE_font="bitmap-fonts truetype-fonts type1-fonts" USE_gui="X dga dri gtk2 opengl sdl xv" USE_multimedia="a52 aac alsa divx4linux encode exif ffmpeg flac gif jpeg mikmod mng mp3 mpeg ogg png quicktime theora tiff vcd vorbis win32codecs wmf xpm" USE_misc="bzip2 cdr dio dvd dvdr dvdread fortran gb imlib maildir mime mmap ncurses nptl nptlonly nsplugin offensive plotutils posix readline sharedmem slang sockets threads zlib" which is followed by... USE="-* ${USE_cpu} ${USE_font} ${USE_gui} ${USE_multimedia} ${USE_misc}" My USE variable still ends up with the same information, but I have an easier time editing it. The only question I have is whether there are any groups of reserved variable names /etc/make.conf, so that I don't screw up system variables. This won't be the final config. I'm trying to figure out a logical way to break up "USE_multimedia", but I run into programs like mplayer that work with audio, video, and still images. "USE_misc" will always be a candidate for taking stuff out. -- Walter Dnes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> In linux /sbin/init is Job #1 My musings on technology and security at http://tech_sec.blog.ca -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list