the idea is to have a x-less server. i've tried it but the thirst thing i've emerge it was terrible. emerge samba with the USE flag "-X" emerges xfree cause of ghostscript. if a USE flag is set, every package has to check the USE flag. maybe emerge should put a little info if it's unable to emerge the package cause of the USE flag. should be something like: take the use flags from /etc/make.profile/make.defaults, then the from /etc/make.conf. then check out every dependency from emerged package. if that works it would be great
if you're saying 'enforce' USE variables hardcore, then there is a bug open for that ... but seriously, if you want a slim server than you should go through and disable all the graphical stuff in your USE variable anyways ... USE="-X -qt -svga -aalib -kde -gnome" etc... *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 2272 ***