Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon <at> gmail.com> writes: > > On Friday 15 January 2010 20:43:32 Harry Putnam wrote: > > [Please excuse if this is a double whammy... it appears not to have > > made it to the mail/news server] > > > > Sorry for the awkwardly phrased subject... but couldn't think of > > anything better. > > > > I'm rebuilding my home desktop with a full reinstall > > > > So far haven't gotten to getting X working... but did notice that when > > I test what all gets installed with: > > > > emerge -vp xfce4-meta > > > > I notice that xorg-x11 is not amongst the... dependencies. > > > > xorg-server is absent as well, but I seem to recall a more basic xorg > > pkgs being involved. Maybe something like xorg-base... or whatever. > > > > Apparently something has happened with naming of pkgs or something, > > that I haven't kept up with. > > > > But can a user really get use out of xfce4-meta with no xorg-server? > > Yes. > > This is how X11 works. xfce does not need a full blown xserver on the *local* > machine, it simply needs X libs to function. The X libs in turn will talk to > the xserver, which does not have to be on the local machine. > > Parallel situation: You do not need X and a browser on a machine running a > web > server, as the pages served are not necessarily viewed on the machine hosting > apache.
Ahh yes... I see you point now. > To get X you can either; > > merge xorg-x11 (this is the "meta" package you didn't know the name of) or > put "X" in USE > > Note carefully that this is not a silly situation, it works this way by > design. Well that is kind of the kicker... I do have X in use flags. In fact posting all I have in /etc/make.conf below: USE="X acpi alsa apache2 branding cscope dbus emacs ffmpeg gif hal jpeg lock logrotate mbox mysql samba sasl session svg vim-pager vim-with-x png pdf session startup-notification subversion thunar tiff exif win32codecs Xaw3d ## FOR Xfce4 => branding dbus hal lock session startup-notification thunar ## They are added above -bluetooth -crypt -eds -emboss -evo -gnome -gstreamer -imap -ipv6 -kde -ldap -mad -maildir -mikmod -minimal -qt3 -qt3support -qt4 -sdl -xscreensaver" As you see, it is the very first USE flag. Maybe something the the negative list is making a problem...? But its not a major obstacle.. of course, my real aim is to get X going with Xfce4 and I'm pretty sure I can get that done. Thanks for the input.