Re: USE flags ??

[David Dorward <dorward@gmail.com>]

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 13:39:14 +0200, Philippe Dhont   (Sea-ro)
<philippe.dhont@searo.be> wrote:
> Is there a possibility to use "USE FLAGS" like in gentoo ?
> This would be very easy to install new software.
> Anybody knows if possible ?
> Or will it be possible in the future ?

It seems unlikely. USE flags specify (mostly) what optional packages
to compile against. For Debian to do this, all packages would have to
be compiled against all combinations of all optional dependancies. As
it is, without that level of choice, Debian is already too big to fit
on a DVD! (And that doens't begin to cover the additional level of
testing that would be required).

-- 
David Dorward <http://dorward.me.uk><http://blog.dorward.me.uk>