Xorg meta ports bloated dependencies

[Aryeh M. Friedman]

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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.
>
> Andrei _______________________________________________
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> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-x11 To
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>
>


- --
Aryeh M. Friedman
FloSoft Systems
Developer, not business, friendly
http://www.flosoft-systems.com
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