What combination of USE flags work for you ?

[gruven]

A long list of USE flags isn't really bad, as long as you keep track of them. Not all use flags are for all programs, I just keep them in the USE flag list so I don't have to put them in /etc/portage/package.use/ every time I do a new install.

The MAKEOPTS options I have set is -j9 (quad core x2 +1) because my computer has plenty of ram + cache to keep up, and the processor has never been more happy. The -l8 option (lower case L stands for "load") is to control the load put on the system from portage. With a higher -j number, you need the -l. You just have to play with the options until you get an acceptable speed from portage.

[MikeTbob]

A long list of USE flags isn't really bad, as long as you keep track of them. Not all use flags are for all programs, I just keep them in the USE flag list so I don't have to put them in /etc/portage/package.use/ every time I do a new install.

Indeed, or if you just compile one program with special use flags, then you do emerge -avDN world and it gets compiled without the special use flags. I find it much easier to just toss all use flags into make.conf and forget about them.

[darkrose0510]

I'll try to remember to post mine later tonight when I've got a gentoo system in front of me - Ubuntu at work - but I am kind of stingy on USE flags generally, unless it's to remove things like -kde -qt3 -qt4 -gnome etc. If I need a particular flag for something I'll add it to package.use as necessary.

[darkrose0510]

Ok, make.conf for my acer aspire one:

CFLAGS="-O2 -march=prescott -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=prescott -pipe"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
VIDEO_CARDS="intel"
INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard synaptics mouse"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://ftp.swin.edu.au/gentoo/"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="X gtk -gnome -qt3 -qt4 -kde alsa opengl sdl png jpeg gif dri"

Like I said, pretty light.

[Jonathan183]

Ok, make.conf for my acer aspire one:

USE="X gtk -gnome -qt3 -qt4 -kde alsa opengl sdl png jpeg gif dri"

Like I said, pretty light.

To be honest that's the sort of thing I was expecting ... is this combination for fluxbox ?

[darkrose0510]

Yeah, Fluxbox, plus all my apps are gtk, and I do a little gaming and play some mp3's, this takes care of evrything I need.

[hazel]

What I would like to do basically is:

1) Compile smaller and faster versions of some of the "heavier" graphical apps that I currently use on Debian.

2) Stop programs like abiword spewing out spurious warnings simply because I choose not to use them under gnome. That really irritates me.

But I suspect that gnome support is built into these programs so using a USE flag of -gnome probably wouldn't have much effect.

[Jonathan183]

What I would like to do basically is:

1) Compile smaller and faster versions of some of the "heavier" graphical apps that I currently use on Debian.

2) Stop programs like abiword spewing out spurious warnings simply because I choose not to use them under gnome. That really irritates me.

But I suspect that gnome support is built into these programs so using a USE flag of -gnome probably wouldn't have much effect.

hazel - emerge -p with gnome and -gnome flags gives different results ... when I tried to emerge abiword with -gnome in the use flag it errored out part way through (I don't use abiword so have not really investigated further). Did you get any further trying to emerge abiword with -gnome?

[hazel]

hazel - emerge -p with gnome and -gnome flags gives different results ... when I tried to emerge abiword with -gnome in the use flag it errored out part way through (I don't use abiword so have not really investigated further). Did you get any further trying to emerge abiword with -gnome?

No, that's on my "To Do Eventually" list. At the moment I'm still playing about with smaller tasks, emerging and unmerging stuff and getting some sort of a desktop up and running. I've already discovered that to build a big package like mozilla, I shall need to use a temporary build directory on my home partition (the biggest one in my system) because there just aren't enough free inodes on /. You'd think 9900 would be enough but they all get eaten up in the first minute of the build. And I have discovered that some packages just won't emerge if certain USE flags are unset, which is probably what you're finding with abiword.

[Jonathan183]

I've already discovered that to build a big package like mozilla, I shall need to use a temporary build directory on my home partition (the biggest one in my system) because there just aren't enough free inodes on /.You'd think 9900 would be enough but they all get eaten up in the first minute of the build.

I have not come across that problem yet

And I have discovered that some packages just won't emerge if certain USE flags are unset

I have experienced that ... one reason for starting this thread