Bug 931909 – app-editors/emacs: Missing alsa-utils dependency

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED INVALID

[Description Lemon Lime 2024-05-14 16:12:31 UTC]

org-clock-play-sound uses "aplay" to play sounds

Source: https://github.com/emacs-mirror/emacs/blob/master/lisp/org/org-clock.el#L900-L916

aplay is available in the media-sound/alsa-utils package. 

However, it is not set as a dependency for Emacs, even though there exists an alsa USE flag.

[Comment 1 Mike Gilbert 2024-05-14 16:20:56 UTC]

The "alsa" USE flag controls a dependency on alsa-lib, which much be present at build time.

alsa-utils sounds like an optional runtime dependency to me, which should not be coupled to a USE flag per Gentoo policy.

https://projects.gentoo.org/qa/policy-guide/dependencies.html#pg0001

[Comment 2 Ulrich Müller 2024-05-14 17:01:28 UTC]

What floppym said. Things work fine without alsa-utils.

There are countless optional runtime dependencies with explicit commands executed by some Emacs command. In addition, M-! which can execute an arbitrary shell command.

We won't make use of optfeature.eclass either, because that would result in a very long (and probably never complete) list.

[Comment 3 Lemon Lime 2024-05-14 17:40:00 UTC]

(In reply to Ulrich Müller from comment #2)
> What floppym said. Things work fine without alsa-utils.
> 
> There are countless optional runtime dependencies with explicit commands
> executed by some Emacs command. In addition, M-! which can execute an
> arbitrary shell command.
> 
> We won't make use of optfeature.eclass either, because that would result in
> a very long (and probably never complete) list.

I see. I completely understand. 

Having said that, were not it for this stack exchange question*1, I never would have found out that I neede aplay. 
*1: https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/67956/trying-to-set-org-clock-sound-for-org-timer

Would it be fair to add an optfeature message to the org-mode gentoo package?

The PR was org-mode specific  after all.

- Best regards

[Comment 4 Ulrich Müller 2024-05-14 19:12:31 UTC]

(In reply to Lemon Lime from comment #3)
> Having said that, were not it for this stack exchange question*1, I never
> would have found out that I neede aplay. 
> *1:
> https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/67956/trying-to-set-org-clock-
> sound-for-org-timer
> 
> Would it be fair to add an optfeature message to the org-mode gentoo package?
> 
> The PR was org-mode specific  after all.

I fear the same argument applies for org-more that applies for Emacs. As a matter of fact, we already have a README.gentoo for app-emacs/org-mode saying:

    local DOC_CONTENTS="Org mode has a large variety of run-time dependencies,
        so you may have to install one or more additional packages.
        A non-exhaustive list of these dependencies may be found at
        <http://orgmode.org/worg/org-dependencies.html>."

(Interestingly, the upstream list doesn't contain aplay.)

[Comment 5 Lemon Lime 2024-05-14 19:15:47 UTC]

(In reply to Ulrich Müller from comment #4)
> (In reply to Lemon Lime from comment #3)
> > Having said that, were not it for this stack exchange question*1, I never
> > would have found out that I neede aplay. 
> > *1:
> > https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/67956/trying-to-set-org-clock-
> > sound-for-org-timer
> > 
> > Would it be fair to add an optfeature message to the org-mode gentoo package?
> > 
> > The PR was org-mode specific  after all.
> 
> I fear the same argument applies for org-more that applies for Emacs. As a
> matter of fact, we already have a README.gentoo for app-emacs/org-mode
> saying:
> 
>     local DOC_CONTENTS="Org mode has a large variety of run-time
> dependencies,
>         so you may have to install one or more additional packages.
>         A non-exhaustive list of these dependencies may be found at
>         <http://orgmode.org/worg/org-dependencies.html>."
> 
> (Interestingly, the upstream list doesn't contain aplay.)

Noted! Thank you very much for the reply. Maybe I'll try to mention aplay to the org-mode devs!