It used to be so, that the media-libs/gst-plugins-base package had alsa and oss USE flags and that gst-plugins-alsa or gst-plugins-oss would be pulled in, depending on this flag. In 0.18, that's no longer the case. But applications, like rhythmbox, depend on gst-plugins-base and they depend on a working sound output. Now, since gst-plugins-base doesn't depend on alsa or oss anymore, emerging rhythmbox will create a state, where no sound output is possible. To solve that, gst-plugins-alsa (or -oss) needs to be manually merged; or gst-plugins-meta needs to be merged, which will pull in -alsa or -oss. IMO gst-plugins-base should depend on gst-plugins-meta. OR: Applications should depend on gst-plugins-meta.
Not going to be added to this package, see Bug 159470. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 200357 ***
Okay. Should rhythmbox depend on gst-plugins-meta?
As said, Bug 159470
(In reply to comment #3) > As said, Bug 159470 I have read that bug, but did not fully understand how it applies to my question in comment #2. Basically, I don't care much about gst-plugins-base. I found, that I was unable to listen to any sound after I emerged rhythmbox. That's so, because RB depends on gst-plugins-base. But IMO, it should also depend on gst-plugins-alsa, even if it's just indirectly. This could be done, if rb would depend on gst-plugins-meta. Should rb now depend on -meta? Bug #159470 is about adding new flags to the -meta package. I would like to know, if other packages (ie. rb) should depend on -meta.
