Neither are needed: it only needs an output plugin of whatever kind (pulse works fine) and CD is optional (I have no optical drive). Can we get these two either USE-conditional or dropped altogether? Thanks!
Reassigning to primary maintainer. There happen to be like none active in that herd though right now I think
Fixed with the bump to 1.5.5. I'm reluctant to touch 1.4.x, since this will be fixed in the 1.6 stable series soon enough. Leaving open in case someone else wants to fix in 1.4 as well.
Marking this RESO FIXED since 1.6.0 is the new stable version and is in-tree.