When emerging roxterm, vte is required. In turn /usr/portage/x11-libs/vte/vte-0.28.1-r200.ebuild list gnome-pty-helper as dependency: PDEPEND="x11-libs/gnome-pty-helper" Leaving x11-libs/gnome-pty-helper-0.28.1 in /etc/make.profile/package.provided proves that gnome-pty-helper is not really required as roxterm and the rest of its dependencies build correctly and run without issues. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.issue: 'emerge roxterm' 2.gnome-pty-helper is listed as dependency 3. Actual Results: Required ebuild dependency is not necessary to build or run the application Expected Results: No extra packages should be requested to be merged I don't use gnome and prefer to keep my system free of its bits.
"...and run without issues" as far as *you* can tell. It's a part of vte, that split here mostly due to gtk2/gtk3 slotting. It would not exist without a reason (and it's contained in its README).
As far as I can tell, gnome-pty-helper is required to set utmp and wtmp records. In other words, without gnome-pty-helper, commands such as /usr/bin/last will not recognize sessions in vte-based terminals. > I don't use gnome and prefer to keep my system free of its bits. The gnome-pty-helper executable has been a required part of vte since 2002. The only reason you noticed it now is that in order to enable parallel installation of gtk2-based and gtk3-based vte, Gentoo was forced to create a separate x11-libs/gnome-pty-helper package. I am highly tempted to mark this bug WONTFIX. Gnome team, opinions?
It's required per reasons told by Tetromino and it doesn't install any additional package over older vte versions (it's a split from vte)
so, it is like a virtual package?
(In reply to comment #4) > so, it is like a virtual package? No. gnome-pty-helper is a program that vte uses to set various login records. The source code for gnome-pty-helper is part of the vte source tarball. Vte developers consider gnome-pty-helper to be a fundamental part of vte. Logically enough, the gnome-pty-helper executable was built and installed by Gentoo's x11-libs/vte package before 0.28. Starting with vte-0.28, in preparation for gnome3, Gentoo slotted the vte package; users now have the choice of installing slot 0 (the gtk2-based version of vte), or slot 2.90 (the gtk3-based version of vte), or both slots in parallel. However, the gnome-pty-helper executable does not use gtk for anything, so making each slot of vte install its own separate copy of gnome-pty-helper would have been a waste of space. Therefore, Gentoo added a new package, called x11-libs/gnome-pty-helper, that installed just the gnome-pty-helper executable, and x11-libs/vte was modified to depend on the new x11-libs/gnome-pty-helper package.
