dependency explosions

[Grzegorz Junka]

On 03/10/2016 14:11, Mike Clarke wrote:
> On Mon, 3 Oct 2016 13:11:43 +0000
> Grzegorz Junka <list1 at gjunka.com> wrote:
>
>> Shouldn't all packages default to noX dependencies? If I am not mistaken
>> FreeBSD is predominantly a server-side system, with X running only
>> occasionally
> I'd disagree with that. I don't know whether or not the majority of
> FreeBSD installations are servers or personal computers but the chances
> are that the majority of server installations will have relatively few
> packages installed whereas most PC's are likely to make use of far
> more packages and are also likely to be using X. Building from ports
> to get the required options would be a much bigger task for these
> installations than it would be for the servers.
>

I have been wondering if it would be possible to have two distinct set 
of packages compiled automatically, one tailored for X and one for the 
console. It seems that requirements of both environment are quite 
opposite. The server-side requires small amount of packages without X 
because it wants to run the system headless, as long as possible and 
without interruptions and restarts. Whereas the X/PC environment always 
wants to have everything latest and newest. In the Linux world they 
would just create a new distribution, even in the BSD world there is 
PC-BSD/TrueOS. But we have ports and can re-use the same base for two 
distinctive set of packages. I don't believe we can create pre-compiled 
packages for FreeBSD in such a way, that both camps are happy (which 
this thread is one of many signs of).

Grzegorz