On 29/08/2016 21:08, Neil Bothwick wrote:
On Mon, 29 Aug 2016 17:04:08 +0100, Peter Humphrey wrote:
I remember someone (Dale?) some time ago being dismayed at the large
number of packages that would be installed by emerge @system.
Now I see what he meant: on this box 401 of the 1103 installed
packages. I'd like to construct a set that would create a reliable
basis for building the rest of @system and @world.
I have a small rescue system on the same disk, also ~amd64, which
doesn't have X or any desktop programs but otherwise is configured for
the same setup. Would it be sensible to use the 44 packages in that
@system as a new set @sysbase on the main system, or would I miss
something important?
Surely the addition of X, and maybe kde or gnome, to your USE flags is
what is causing so many packages to be pulled in by @system.
I found something similar when building a new system recently, @system
pulled in X and a shedload of dependencies. Switching to a non-desktop
profile meant far fewer packages were needed to get a basic system.
Don't forget that @system only lives in a context, and the context is a
real computer.
Out of context it's just a list of strings. In context, it's strings
that means packages, with deps and everything else that needs to be
built for @system to mean anything on the machine it's added to.
One never needs to define @system, that is already done in a profile so
it's not something that means sense to migrate or re-use elsewhere.
Don't worry about @system, worry about USE and get that right. Emerge
will deal with what it takes to give the user the @system he's really
asking for.
Or maybe I don't completely understand yet Peter's actual question.
Alan
