Could we please add USE flags to kde-apps/kde-apps-meta, to allow controlling the dependencies that get pulled in? I have kde-apps/kde-meta, because I just want a regular KDE that works. I don't want to worry about specific apps metapackages changing names or having to remember to install kde-plasma/plasma-meta, or whatever that pulls in. However, I've run into several issues with more than one package pulled in from kde-apps/kdeedu-meta (e.g. bug #714592 for kde-apps/cantor). I don't need most of the edu packages, and their build failures are a time sink. I would like to get rid of kde-apps/kdeedu-meta and just install one or two packages which I do use. The problem is, I can't uninstall kde-apps/kdeedu-meta without also uninstalling kde-apps/kde-apps-meta. Which would require uninstalling kde-apps/kde-meta, which would force me to keep track of all the *-meta packages individually, plus plasma stuff etc. Someone asked for something similar in bug #376813 and the answer there was basically that people can just keep track of all the package sets manually if they really want weird combinations. I don't want weird combinations, and I don't really want to track the KDE tree of packages and multiple meta-packages. I just want to tweak some of the defaults. That is why we have USE flags, right? :)
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 697956 ***
I did not ask for the same thing that was being asked in bug 697956. If anything, this bug complements the other one. I asked to make the kde-apps-meta package splittable with USE flags, as an alternative to removing the package and installing specific smaller meta packages. I indicated specific reasons for why I think USE flags are a benefit here, which that other bug does not address. In my case, I just want all of KDE without one set of apps (edu). The person who reported the other bug seems to also want all of KDE without one set of apps (games). Removing kde-meta and kde-apps-meta, and installing a bunch of smaller -metas solves the problem, but is awkward, error prone and not future proof. It means I will have to track a bunch of smaller meta packages, in case you decide to reorganize them (e.g. split kdemultimedia-meta into video and audio) or introduce some new ones. I don't want to check https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/KDE#Applications every time there's a KDE upgrade. I just want KDE without one set of apps. Yes, you can do everything purely with separate packages and metapackages. That's how Debian does it. And then it ends up with a bunch of packages for vim, with GTK2, with GTK3, without X, with Python and X, etc. If I wanted KDE without some set of apps in Debian, I'd probably be out of luck unless I did exactly what you propose in the other bug. But thankfully, Gentoo's package management system is more flexible. It supports USE flags, which make it trivial to solve both the vim problem, and the one I'm describing. What is the problem with adding a set of USE flags to kde-apps-meta, all enabled by default, so the user can selectively disable one of them?
Reopening for response / triage.
(In reply to Israel G. Lugo from comment #2) > I did not ask for the same thing that was being asked in bug 697956. If > anything, this bug complements the other one. It is exactly the same discussion and the same arguments. (In reply to Israel G. Lugo from comment #2) > I don't want to check https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/KDE#Applications every > time there's a KDE upgrade. In practise, that is not an issue at all. This structure is very stale, iirc only one or two changes happened during the Qt4 to Qt5 transition.
The bug has been closed via the following commit(s): https://gitweb.gentoo.org/proj/kde.git/commit/?id=ed17b48499435e68fed0e64c6c90a94c8fe83e3c commit ed17b48499435e68fed0e64c6c90a94c8fe83e3c Author: Andreas Sturmlechner <asturm@gentoo.org> AuthorDate: 2020-10-26 15:09:13 +0000 Commit: Andreas Sturmlechner <asturm@gentoo.org> CommitDate: 2020-10-26 15:09:13 +0000 kde-apps/kde-apps-meta: Add IUSE for control over sub-meta-packages +admin +education +games +graphics +multimedia +network +utils Update DESCRIPTION, it is Release Service now. Closes: https://bugs.gentoo.org/717384 Package-Manager: Portage-3.0.8, Repoman-3.0.2 Signed-off-by: Andreas Sturmlechner <asturm@gentoo.org> .../kde-apps-meta/kde-apps-meta-20.08.49.9999.ebuild | 18 +++++++++--------- kde-apps/kde-apps-meta/kde-apps-meta-9999.ebuild | 18 +++++++++--------- kde-apps/kde-apps-meta/metadata.xml | 8 ++++++++ 3 files changed, 26 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-)
