100s of xorg ports, will there be an xorg-base port?

[yurtesen at ispro.net]

Quoting Michael Nottebrock <lofi at freebsd.org>:

> On Saturday, 7. July 2007, Evren Yurtesen wrote:
>
>> > Please explain what the problem is.  If you choose to install the xorg
>> > metaport then the ports system will automatically fetch and install the
>> > dependencies.  Exactly what aren't "most people" happy about?
>>
>> I guess it is mostly psychological but people do not tend to like a lot
>> of ports installed with each app as usually this means more difficulties
>> when upgrading etc. Maybe this is superficial but at the least it is
>> discouraging people from using X with FreeBSD or upgrading to 7.2.
>> People are not happy because of the simple reason that one has to
>> install 300-400 more ports (especially without a possibilit to select
>> what to not to install) to get X running nowadays.
>
> I believe this is pretty much a non-issue. X.org hasn't really grown in
> complexity (at least as far as the end-user is concerned) or size just
> because the monolithic ports are no more. I am rather certain future X.org
> updates won't be nearly as involved, if at all, as the monolithic 6.9 ->
> modular 7.2 transition.
>
> Also I suspect you underestimate the problems a stripped down installation of
> X.org can bring on machines running the actual server, which seems to the
> kind of installations you have in mind. X.org is not very good yet at telling
> exactly what is missing if some particular feature/extension or driver the
> user wants happens not to be installed, neither are most users familiar
> enough with X to make a well-informed decision what components they really
> want when faced with an options menu.
>
> Augmenting X.org with some sort of plug'n'play front-end for hardware
> detection and automatic driver installation therefore might be a worthwhile
> project, but it's probably outside the scope of a port Makefile.

You have a point, but what I am asking is at least an options dialog.  
As well all components can be selected by default if you are worried  
that user cant choose right components, and you can warn the user that  
if they deselect some then things might get broken. The user should  
have a choice.

Also, a stripped down X is possible. If lets say we install KDE and it  
requires more components then they could be installed automatically  
with KDE install. A good example I know is PHP port. PHP normally  
installs a stripped down version without any extensions, however when  
you install some port like lets say squirrelmail, then some extensions  
are installed automatically. As well, when PHP is installed, it asks  
if you waht the CLI or module etc. the user can make a mistake and  
install wrong things there too.

It all comes down to having a choice, from what I see in forums and  
mailing list entries that people complain about X installing too many  
ports. By giving them a choice of what is installed or not, even if  
all selected by default, you can stop people from complaining. When  
they have a choice to not to install so many ports, at least they cant  
complain because it was their choice to install all :D
Plus, the people who know what they are doing can clean up their  
systems by not installing unnecessary ports.

I know, you will say that the same stuff was installed before anyway  
but it just looks way more when it is installing 100+ ports now. :)

Thanks,
Evren