What combination of USE flags work for you ?

[hazel]

package.use also has gnome for gtk (it wouldn't compile without it)

That's funny! I have -gnome in make.conf and no package.use file but I had no problem with compiling gtk.

[darkrose0510]

I've got the same on my aspire one... are you running 32bit? It must be a 64bit thing I'm guessing.

[Jonathan183]

I had a bit of fun getting the xorg-server update to work with hotplugging, here is my current desktop system make.conf (32 bit system) ...

# These settings were set by the catalyst build script that automatically
# built this stage.
# Please consult /etc/make.conf.example for a more detailed example.
CFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -pipe"
# WARNING: Changing your CHOST is not something that should be done lightly.
# Please consult http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/change-chost.xml before changing.
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"

#next line replacement for above - added symlink for kernel symlink auto update
USE="
# start of USE flag list
# wanted
alsa arts audio cairo cdr clamav
dvd firefox hal ieee1394 imlib kde
mp3 nls opengl qt4 qt3
spell symlink truetype
X xine
# unwanted
-esd -gnome
-xinerama
"
# end of USE flag list
# add -input_evdev for xorg_1_5 with no hotplugging

INPUT_DEVICES="evdev keyboard mouse"
VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia"

# added for openoffice
LINGUAS="en_GB"

# old flags changed 4 Apr 09 USE="X alsa cairo cdr clamav dvd firefox ieee1394 kde opengl qt4 qt3 xine symlink esd -gnome imlib minimal nls spell truetype xinerama"
#USE = "X alsa cairo cdr clamav dvd firefox ieee1394 kde opengl qt4 qt3 xine"
# added esd gnome imlib minimal nls spell truetype xinerama for IceWM install

#next lines added to allow portage to function until mirrorselect can be emerged
#GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://gentoo.virginmedia.com/sites/gentoo"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.europe.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"

I left the old use flag combination ... it worked but did not do everything I wanted ... I decided I lived without sound in X long enough so arts, audio, mp3 were added etc.
USE flag layout based on gruven's earlier posts ... unless you have a space after each flag emerge gets a bit confused

... I'm sure I will refine/add to the list but it works for the moment

[i92guboj]

USE="
# start of USE flag list
# wanted
alsa arts audio cairo cdr clamav
dvd firefox hal ieee1394 imlib kde
mp3 nls opengl qt4 qt3
spell symlink truetype
X xine
# unwanted
-esd -gnome
-xinerama
"

The words I highlighted above, while not particularly problematic, don't probably have the effect you intended. In the middle of a variable definition (which is just what USE is) comments have no effect. So, you are just adding a few words/tokens to your USE flags list: "# start of USE flag list wanted unwanted"

Probably not too problematic because neither of these tokens seems like a candidate for any future flag. But in any case I'd remove them. If you want further fine grained documentation in make.conf you can separate blocks by concatenating the USE variable later in the script. Like this:

# comment 1
USE="foo blah either"
# comment -2
USE="$USE -food -vlad -tepes"

Regards and happy Sunday

[Jonathan183]

Thanks i92guboj ... the #wanted are just comments for me ... if they start causing problems I will rearrange as you suggested actually I'll probably give it a go

[i92guboj]

Thanks i92guboj ... the #wanted are just comments for me ... if they start causing problems I will rearrange as you suggested actually I'll probably give it a go

They won't cause any problems for the reason I commented above: unlikely names for an USE flag. But that's besides the point of my previous post: the #wanted stuff are comments "for me" as you say, but they are not comments for bash. They are USE flags for bash and for portage to all purposes. That's why I suggest taking the comments out of the variable declaration.

Your way is probably harmless. Still not correct.

Of course, you are free to use them as you wish. I just wanted you to be aware of the potential issues.

With the word list that you have there, there won't be a problem. But if, for example, you do this:

USE="-kde
#this is so that kde is not enabled
foo
bar
"

Then, kde will be enabled, because in what you think that's a comment, "kde" is defined, and it will take precedence over the previous "-kde" token.

I hope it makes sense.

[Jonathan183]

Thanks i92guboj, already acted on see below current version for 64 bit laptop ...

# These settings were set by the catalyst build script that automatically
# built this stage.
# Please consult /etc/make.conf.example for a more detailed example.

CFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -O2 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

### next line added to optimise for dual processors
MAKEOPTS="-j3"

# WARNING: Changing your CHOST is not something that should be done lightly.
# Please consult http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/change-chost.xml before changing.
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"

### wanted flags
USE="alsa arts cairo cdr clamav
dvd dvdr fam firefox flac gif hal ieee1394 imlib jpeg kde mp3 nls
ogg opengl png qt4 qt3 raw ssl spell symlink tiff truetype
usb vorbis xine X"

### unwanted flags
USE="$USE -esd -gnome -msn -pcmcia -xinerama -yahoo"

VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia"

LINGUAS="en_GB"

GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://gentoo.virginmedia.com/sites/gentoo"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.europe.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"

it was time to tidy a few things up anyway ... I'm compiling with this arrangement at the moment so would not have posted - once the flags have lasted for a month or so and been through a couple of
emerge -avuDN world and emerge --depclean then revdep-rebuild cycles I consider them stable enough

[saivin]

Hi,
I installed Gentoo on my laptop with default USE flags and now am installing on desktop with these suggestions. So, nothing useful post from me regarding USE flags.

But I have one question: WHY HAVE YOU NOT MADE THIS A STICKY??? (Yes, I'm angry and am screaming)

Its such a useful information on such an important aspect of Gentoo system. Please consider this request...

[MikeTbob]

Hi,
I have one question: WHY HAVE YOU NOT MADE THIS A STICKY??? (Yes, I'm angry and am screaming)

Its such a useful information on such an important aspect of Gentoo system. Please consider this request...

Consider your wish granted saivin.

[saivin]

Me too..me too...
The below is my USE flags list. I just appended the use.desc and removed whatever I didnot want and whatever I could not understand... It may not be a wisely decided set but its just working for me.

USE="
a52 aac aalib acpi alsa apm avahi 
bash-completion bcmath bluetooth branding bzip2 
cairo cdparanoia cdr cracklib crypt css cups curl 
dbus dri dvd dvdr 
encode
ffmpeg firefox flac fltk fontconfig ftp 
gif gimp gnome gnome-keyring gnutls gpm gzip gtk gtkhtml 
hal 
ieee1394 imap imlib 
java javascript jbig jpeg 
-kde 
lame lash ldap libnotify libsamplerate libwww lzo 
m17n-lib mad maildir matroska mbox memlimit mhash mime mmap mmx mng modplug mozilla mp3 mpeg mtp multilib musepack 
nas ncurses nsplugin 
ogg openal openexr 
pcre pdf perl php png policykit portaudio posix python 
-qt3 -qt4 quicktime 
raw rdesktop readline 
samba session smp sndfile snmp sockets socks5 source sox speex spell spl sse sse2 ssl svg svga symlink syslog sysvipc
taglib tcl tcpd theora tiff timidity tk tokenizer truetype 
unicode usb 
vcd vnc vorbis 
wavpack wifi win32codecs wmf 
X x264 xattr xine xinetd xml xmlrpc xpm xulrunner xvid 
zeroconf zlib "

Btw, why the make.conf is readable only by root? Whats so secretive about it? Infact, even 'sudo' didnot have permission, had to use 'su'.