The KDE metapackages include a "webengine" USE flag that prevents the pulling of Falkon and/or Konqueror if not enabled. It's long overdue for the GNOME metapackages to also offer such a USE flag that would prevent them from pulling in Epiphany if the user enables them. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Enable the "extras" USE flag in the gnome-base/gnome package 2. emerge gnome-base/gnome app-portage/layman 3. layman -L 4. layman -a brave-overlay 5. emerge www-client/brave-bin && emerge -C www-client/epiphany 6. emerge --sync && emerge -avuDNU @world Actual Results: Because there's no USE flag to disable it, gnome-extra-apps keeps pulling in Epiphany after every world update Expected Results: User should have the option not to have Epiphany pulled in every time.
Created attachment 736972 [details, diff] Fix f
Created attachment 736975 [details, diff] 0001-Don-t-force-epiphany-on-those-who-don-t-want-it.patch
gnome-extra-apps is a metapackage that brings in what is considered part of the full GNOME desktop. Epiphany is part of that. We won't be adding USE flags for every single dependency of a meta-package. Where would it stop - if epiphany has a USE flag, why wouldn't gnome-system-monitor, gnome-font-viewer, gnome-calculator, gnome-disk-utility, ... And no, it bringing in webkit-gtk, and thus wanting to avoid it with it, is not an argument either (not sure if it was yours), because it's far from the only thing that does so - webkit-gtk is a core platform library and is used by various other packages, including others that are in the same meta-package. If you don't want that full set of extra apps, don't install the meta-package and pick and choose what you want yourself then. We aren't stopping anyone from doing that. The meta packages serve as a way to provide a curated set of packages for most users, or at least users who don't micro-manage every single thing they get installed. If you are such a person, these meta-packages simply aren't meant for you. We already provide a means to hand-manage only this part of the meta-packages set via gnome[-extras] too (but there is no guarantee it'll stay that way forever), while still using the gnome-base/gnome meta-package.
Hi! I reply below: (In reply to Mart Raudsepp from comment #3) > > And no, it bringing in webkit-gtk, and thus wanting to avoid it with it, is > not an argument either (not sure if it was yours), because it's far from the > only thing that does so - webkit-gtk is a core platform library and is used > by various other packages, including others that are in the same > meta-package. Maybe that was true in 2021-08-31, but now epiphany is the only package in my machine pulling webkit-gtk:6. Indeed, the command emerge -pvc net-libs/webkit-gtk:6 www-client/epiphany gnome-base/gnome{,-extra-apps} confirms Portage can remove webkit-gtk:6 as long as epiphany -- therefore also gnome-base/gnome-extra-apps -- are removed too. Note that in my simulation I also had to pretend-remove gnome-base/gnome, as I have USE=extras on gnome-base/gnome. On my workstation, building webkit-gtk:6 takes 2h. This unnecessary epiphany dependency costs 2h on initial Gentoo install and on every webkit-gtk upgrade, thus significantly worsening one of Gentoo's greatest problems. To leverage getbinpkg, I have to disable avif jpegxl USE flags in /etc/portage/package.use/lean.conf: net-libs/webkit-gtk:6 -avif -jpegxl This workaround has two problems: 1. Many users, especially those installing Gentoo, won't come up with this solution, especially because: 1.1: They may not know the cost of building webkit-gtk 1.2: The list of new packages when installing Gentoo is hundreds of lines long, so the user won't notice the specific problem. 1.3: The user might not realize epiphany is the only package pulling net-libs/webkit-gtk:6. 2. The workaround forces the user to maintain that USE package override specifically for webkit-gtk:6, updating it whenever default webkit-gtk USE flags diverge from user configuration. I don't think the number of users installing Gnome with custom make.conf USE flags (such as avif and jpegxl) is small. USE flags are one of Gentoo's key selling points. > Where would it stop - if epiphany has a USE flag, why wouldn't gnome-system-monitor, gnome-font-viewer, gnome-calculator, gnome-disk-utility, ... Epiphany is a special case: 1. It is the only reverse dependency of net-libs/webkit-gtk:6 (2h build), at least on my machine. 2. It is probably one of the least-used big Gnome apps.
