Bug 503732 – app-editors/vim - USE=minimal should collide with USE=python and other USE flags

• Status: CONFIRMED
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description David Heidelberg (okias) 2014-03-07 14:23:13 UTC]

That's all. When you read ebuild code, USE flags are ignored when minimal is used.

I'll try make patch soon.

Reproducible: Always

[Comment 1 Tim Harder 2014-03-07 20:29:01 UTC]

Yep, this really hasn't been a priority for me since people enabling the minimal use flag should know what they're getting.

[Comment 2 Patrice Clement 2017-10-26 21:58:26 UTC]

Hi David

I'm having a hard time understanding why is overriding USE flags when the minimal USE flag is set is actually an issue. To provide a minimal version of vim and to let users decide which USE flags to set is almost an oxymoron. We want to make sure vim is built with as few options as possible. I've discussed this bug report with another former Gentoo developer who suggested to use the REQUIRED_USE variable. Again, I'm kinda torn. I'm not sure it has an added value for human users of vim. Let me know what you think.

[Comment 3 Arfrever Frehtes Taifersar Arahesis 2017-10-26 22:00:23 UTC]

Collision of USE flags can be implemented using REQUIRED_USE.
Benefit for end users is rather small.

However it is potentially useful for reverse dependencies.
If a package needs vim[python] for correct behavior, then it would need RDEPEND="app-editors/vim[python,-minimal]" instead of just RDEPEND="app-editors/vim[python]".

[Comment 4 Katherine Peeters 2021-11-05 23:56:46 UTC]

Currently, the `minimal` USE flag on app-editors/vim does only two things:

1. Disables a variety of built options, *all* of which are already controlled by existing USE flags.
2. Sets `--with-features=tiny`, as opposed to the default `--with-features=huge`.

Suggested behaviour would be to only set the `--with-features=tiny` build option, and leave all other build options as they are configured by the package's other USE flags.

It may also be desirable to rename the flag to something like `tiny`, with an appropriate description, to clarify what the flag actually does.

It may also be desirable to add additional flags for the various other Vim feature sets apart from `tiny` and `huge`, but that would be new functionality and so isn't really a priority.

[Comment 5 Katherine Peeters 2021-11-06 01:16:00 UTC]

Created attachment 748893 [details, diff]
Replace minimal USE flag with a tiny USE flag

I've attached a patch which replaces the `minimal` USE flag with a `tiny` USE flag, which sets only the --with-features=tiny build option.

I have also tested the new `tiny` USE flag with a variety of the existing flags. Here are my results:

- The flags "X", "acl", "crypt", "cscope", "debug", "gpm", "nls", "racket", "tcl", and "terminal" all build with "tiny" with no errors.
- The flags "lua", "perl", "python", and "vim-pager" produce a configure error when used with "tiny". I have edited REQUIRED_USE appropriately.
- The flags "ruby", and "sound" have not been tested.

[Comment 6 Katherine Peeters 2021-11-06 02:08:25 UTC]

Created attachment 748896 [details, diff]
Replace minimal USE flag with a tiny USE flag

Attached patch in `git format-patch` format, as requested.

[Comment 7 Katherine Peeters 2021-11-06 02:10:49 UTC]

Created attachment 748899 [details, diff]
Replace minimal USE flag with a tiny USE flag

[Comment 8 Katherine Peeters 2021-11-06 02:14:36 UTC]

Created attachment 748905 [details, diff]
Replace minimal USE flag with a tiny USE flag