Re: [gentoo-user] A gentoo kind of dependency heck

[Kevin O'Gorman]

On 6/13/06, Neil Bothwick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 08:39:52 -0700, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:

> > You use gmail, so as long as you have a desktop (twm is included with
> > xorg) and a browser (firefox?) you can communicate.

> This is good to hear, but it's entirely theoretical from my point of
> view. How
> would I find out about turning off KDE and turning on twm?

If you use /etc/rc.conf to set your desktop (the Gentoo way) then booting
to a console and running startx will give you twm. alternatively, you
could emerge another window manager, such as Fluxbox.

I guess I do.  /etc/rc.conf contains

DISPLAYMANAGER="kdm"
XSESSION="kde-3.2.1"

(but it brings up KDE 3.5).  What is "booting to a console"?  I used to know
about runlevels until Gentoo made hash of the old way of doing things.
Now I can boot "single" and that's as much as I know.

> I'd like to
> practice this before I destroy my system.

I love your optimism :)

You'd rather I practiced after it's too late?  I've been around too long to
think optimism is a good strategy in the face of system problems.  Besides,
some of your .signature choices aren't exactly polyanna stuff.  :o)  I
particularly like the one about bugs and entropy.

> > If you emerge kde-meta, you'll have everything that the monolithic kde
> > ebuild gave you, just in manageable bite-sized chunks.

> Hmph.  You call 300 separate ebuilds manageable?  I suppose it is if
> you meta them in as a chunk.

It's also manageable in that you can manage what gets installed. You have
the choice of using a meta-package to install everything, or picking
only the apps you want installed. Why install kmail and its dependencies
if you use a different mailer?

> So the payoff is in not recompiling them
> all when one changes?  I guess that's reasonable.  Un-humph.

It certainly makes bugfix and security updates a lot faster.

++ kevin

--
Kevin O'Gorman, PhD