The ebuild for gdk-pixbuf (in the mentioned version, at least) has a dependancy on gnome-libs, which should not be there. The dependancy should be optional based on the USE variable containing "gnome". This also fixes (indirect) dependancies for lots of programs which use gdk-pixbuf, but which do *not* require gnome-libs, e.g. gqview. I've attached a diff against the ebuild pkg which fixes the problem (by making the gnome functionality optional instead of required).
Created attachment 522 [details, diff] fix for gdk-pixbuf required dependancy on gnome-libs
Well, here's the thing. If you look back through the ChangeLog for gdk-pixbuf, you'll see that I had taken out the gnome-libs dependency and then stuck it back in. The reasons should be listed in there.
Didn't notice that, sorry. But isn't that the wrong way to go about it? Seems to me, that it is in fact all the other dependencies that should be fixed. In order to fix this, all that would need to be done would be to create a "virtual" package, gdk-pixbuf-with-gnome-support (or somtehing like that) (could easily be adapted from e.g. kde-3.0.ebuild), and change ALL packages to depend on that instead. (Should be easy to do with a bit of sed/perl magic :)). Then, the packages which don't depend on GNOME (e.g. gqview) support could slowly be changed to reflect that by changing their dependancies on gdk-pixbuf-with-gnome-support to gdk-pixbuf. Nothing gets broken and it's quick to do. *That* would be a real fix. *And* you would not get any further bug-reports about broken dependancies in gdk-pixbuf :))
We've been discussing this stuff for a while. Not sure how we're going to handle it yet, exactly. I personally would like to debloat gdk-pixbuf (which is why I took the gnome-libs stuff out before). The virtual package idea that you propose is interesting. I shall look into it. Thanks.
The general guideline is to make something work for all, without too much bloat. The gdk-pixbuf/gnome-libs have been a problem in the past, which was then repeated recently. To spare developers debug time, and make life for new users easier, it was decided to make gnome-libs a static DEPEND since it is not *that* big, and many gnome apps use it, or look/work better with it present (my opinion ;/). Now, for this hack that is proposed. I dont think we should go to such extremes just yet. ebuild and portage should be transparent enouth to enable the experience user for who these thing bother, to delete gnome-libs from the DEPEND for the time being. A way to specify the needed USE flags for a DEPEND was discussed, and is in the works (hopefully soon), so I vote things for the time begin to stay like it is now.
I am very interested in de-bloat, and gdk-pixbuf is a package I am watching for various reasons anyway, so as soon as portage advances to a stage where we can specify things the way Az said, I will revisit gdk-pixbuf and a few other ebuilds to de-fatten them :)
