we have USE=zlib already which should cover automatically pulling in zlib when
necessary, and we have that by default in make.conf. so there's no need to
explicitly list zlib as part of the system target. so time to drop it.
-mike

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 3:09 PM, Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> we have USE=zlib already which should cover automatically pulling in zlib when
> necessary, and we have that by default in make.conf. *so there's no need to
> explicitly list zlib as part of the system target. *so time to drop it.
> -mike

I don't object to this, but just to satisfy my curiosity, what are the
effects of removing, say, zlib or readline from the system profile?
It'd be very difficult if not impossible to construct a system without
these. The only effect I've noticed from changes like these are that
sometimes the packages will be depcleaned from stage3 tarballs if
nothing has them in RDEPEND.

Are there any other cases?

Matt

On 11/29/2011 06:14 PM, Matt Turner wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 3:09 PM, Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> we have USE=zlib already which should cover automatically pulling in zlib when
>> necessary, and we have that by default in make.conf. so there's no need to
>> explicitly list zlib as part of the system target. so time to drop it.
>> -mike
>
> I don't object to this, but just to satisfy my curiosity, what are the
> effects of removing, say, zlib or readline from the system profile?
> It'd be very difficult if not impossible to construct a system without
> these. The only effect I've noticed from changes like these are that
> sometimes the packages will be depcleaned from stage3 tarballs if
> nothing has them in RDEPEND.
>
> Are there any other cases?

One nice thing about removing them from the system profile is that it
allows for greater parallelization with emerge --jobs, since packages
that's aren't in the system set don't trigger the code for bug 256616
[1] which limits parallelization as a safety precaution.

[1] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=256616
--
Thanks,
Zac

On Tuesday 29 November 2011 21:14:49 Matt Turner wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 3:09 PM, Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > we have USE=zlib already which should cover automatically pulling in zlib
> > when necessary, and we have that by default in make.conf. so there's no
> > need to explicitly list zlib as part of the system target. so time to
> > drop it.
>
> I don't object to this, but just to satisfy my curiosity, what are the
> effects of removing, say, zlib or readline from the system profile?
> It'd be very difficult if not impossible to construct a system without
> these. The only effect I've noticed from changes like these are that
> sometimes the packages will be depcleaned from stage3 tarballs if
> nothing has them in RDEPEND.

you should be able to USE='-readline -zlib' and, for the most part, not have
them get used. certainly for readline, almost nothing in the core (or much of
the tree) uses it -- if we ignore bash because it bundles a copy of readline.

i also want to keep it simple for slimmed down systems, and to keep the "core"
set as small as possible for older systems during upgrade paths.
-mike

On Tuesday 29 November 2011 21:14:49 Matt Turner wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 3:09 PM, Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > we have USE=zlib already which should cover automatically pulling in zlib
> > when necessary, and we have that by default in make.conf. so there's no
> > need to explicitly list zlib as part of the system target. so time to
> > drop it.
>
> I don't object to this, but just to satisfy my curiosity, what are the
> effects of removing, say, zlib or readline from the system profile?
> It'd be very difficult if not impossible to construct a system without
> these. The only effect I've noticed from changes like these are that
> sometimes the packages will be depcleaned from stage3 tarballs if
> nothing has them in RDEPEND.

another advantage: manual searches of packages linking against readline shows
a bunch of packages lacking USE=readline control (which i've fixed up).
hopefully people who dep clean this thing will notice and file bugs (we've had
a few along those lines in the pass).
-mike

Zac Medico posted on Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:29:20 -0800 as excerpted:

> One nice thing about removing them from the system profile is that it
> allows for greater parallelization with emerge --jobs, since packages
> that's aren't in the system set don't trigger the code for bug 256616
> [1] which limits parallelization as a safety precaution.
>
> [1] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=256616

And a VERY nice benefit that is, too. =:^)

Except, don't dependencies of system profile packages get the same safety
precaution applied, and at the level we're talking here, zlib, etc,
aren't such packages going to almost certainly be dependencies of @system
on a normal system, even if they're not in @system itself?

If so, that's a relatively limited benefit in most cases.

Meanwhile, the better flexibility in terms of embedded is the benefit
that immediately comes to mind here. From what I've read, gentoo is
quite popular with embedded, and a lot of embedded folks go to a lot of
work to remove "unnecessary" packages from the system set. If it's
possible to do that at the general gentoo level without too much trouble
and without affecting general system target functionality, it's surely
going to save a lot of embedded folks a lot of duplicated effort, over
time.

--
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman