Xorg meta ports bloated dependencies

[Tim Clewlow]

--- "Aryeh M. Friedman" <aryeh.friedman at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Andrei Kolu wrote:
> > Saturday 01 December 2007 11:08:28 kirjutas Yuri Pankov:
> >> Andrei Kolu wrote:
> >>> Saturday 01 December 2007 05:20:40 kirjutas
> >>> dexterclarke at safe-mail.net:
> >>>> I've just been helping somebody through an installation of
> >>>> 6.2-RELEASE and we've noticed the excessive dependencies of
> >>>> the xorg meta ports.
> >>>>
> >>>> xorg-server 1.4, for example, depends on:
> >>>>
> >>>> dbus-1.0.2_2, dbus-glib-0.74, glib-2.14.2, gnome_subr-1.0,
> >>>> hal-0.5.8.20070909 and even strange things like
> >>>> cdrtools-2.01_6.
> >>>>
> >>>> xorg-server 1.2 (the one distributed with the 6.2-RELEASE CD)
> >>>>  doesn't have these dependencies.
> >>>>
> >>>> Putting it bluntly: why is this crap being dragged in?
> >>>> Neither of us use GNOME or anything that might require dbus.
> >>>> I can't see why xorg-server could possibly need any of the
> >>>> above?
> >>>>
> >>>> Anxiously awaiting a flaming argument.
> >>> And why xorg should include ugly fonts like adobe* an type1*?
> >> Because it IS a *META* port and should install everything that is
> >> part of xorg distribution? You are free to install the ports that
> >> you need, use WITHOUT_HAL for xorg-server, etc. And there are
> >> many people who think that ttf fonts are ugly, and bitmap and
> >> type1 fonts are more readable.
> >>
> > I'd like to see choices in metaport- ncurses based menus with
> > packages we really need. It is impossible to install Xorg without
> > metaport (anyone have done that at all?)- 300+ separate ports IIRC.
> > After removing unnecessary ports (fonts FE) and later you may try
> > to upgrade Xorg to newer version then package dependency would be
> > broken...
> 
> It is *NOT* the metaport that drags all this stuff in but
> xorg-server.   I attempted to do slightly disconnected install (worked
> relatively well except for when it came to installing something
> fancier then a wm) which was install xorg-server the i/o drivers for
> my platform and the xorg apps I wanted.
> 
> What I found was:
> 
> 1. xorg-server does a very bad job on fonts dependicies (it installs
> almost no fonts)
> 2. many xorg-apps assume they are being installed as a part of the
> metaport and do not sufficently check their own dependicies.
> 3. xorg and other long tool chains show some major weaknesses in the
> ports system:
>     a. Inconsitent overridding or lack there of the config target
> (ports(8))
>     b. Due to bad management of the dependancy DAG you are forced to
> use meta ports
>     c. Due to c there is much less orthangonality then there should be
> between ports
> >
> > Or how can I tell metaport how to NOT INSTALL some crap I don't
> > need.
> >

4. On a recent upgrade after updating the ports tree, xorg got upgraded, and
wrote over the top of the existing /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc file - not
a big problem as I have a number of desktop boxes setup with same xinit file -
so I just copied one across - but still annoying - especially if you only have
one desktop - which means you will lose any customizations to xinit - would be
nice if it first created a backup/saved copy of existing xinit before
overwriting it.

Cheers, Tim.


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