Xorg meta ports bloated dependencies

[Jeremy Messenger]

On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 15:28:59 -0600, Tim Clewlow <tim1timau at yahoo.com>  
wrote:

>
> --- "Aryeh M. Friedman" <aryeh.friedman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
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>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>> 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.

You can change the env variable of XINITRC, so create something like  
/etc/X11/xinitrc then have XINITRC set to /etc/X11/xinitrc in somewhere  
like /etc/profile, /etc/login.conf or else. I haven't try it, but I think  
it should works.

Cheers,
Mezz

> Cheers, Tim.


-- 
mezz7 at cox.net  -  mezz at FreeBSD.org
FreeBSD GNOME Team  -  FreeBSD Multimedia Hat (ports, not src)
http://www.FreeBSD.org/gnome/  -  gnome at FreeBSD.org
http://wiki.freebsd.org/multimedia  -  multimedia at FreeBSD.org