USE flag descriptions missing

[b9AcE]

The biggest drawback I have experienced after switching from Gentoo as main dist to Funtoo is that often there are USE-flags missing descriptions.

Right now for example there is a "sys-apps/openrc-0.18.3" where one might wonder what the flags "netifrc", "newnet" and "tools" does, but if we do... we have to read the .ebuild-file to try to guess what those USE-flags actually do.

 

Output from "equery u sys-apps/openrc"

 

 [ Legend : U - final flag setting for installation]
[        : I - package is installed with flag     ]
[ Colors : set, unset                             ]
 * Found these USE flags for sys-apps/openrc-0.18.3:
 U I
 - - audit       : Enable support for Linux audit subsystem using sys-process/audit
 - - debug       : Enable extra debug codepaths, like asserts and extra output. If you want to get meaningful backtraces see https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Quality_Assurance/Backtraces
 + + ncurses     : Add ncurses support (console display library)
 - - netifrc     : <unknown>
 - - newnet      : <unknown>
 + + pam         : Add support for PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) - DANGEROUS to arbitrarily flip
 - - static-libs : Build static versions of dynamic libraries as well
 - - tools       : <unknown>
 + + unicode     : Add support for Unicode

This is just an example out of many similar cases I have encountered since I made the switch, on several machines.

It makes each world-update a potentially huge source-diving chore with needlessly high potential for errors if the user misunderstands or guesses wrong.

The point of having the ability to make choices is to a large part lost if the user isn't able to make an informed choice.

It definitely should be prioritized to at least provide a sentence or two about what a USE-flag does, if it's worth the time to make the flag itself. On these grounds, new USE-flags without an informative description should be rejected in my opinion.

[pr1vacy]

I normally go to the Gentoo site and figure it out that way. :D

[Sandro]

I read from https://www.gentoo.org/support/use-flags/

 

Or eix

 

# euse -i

 

and .... 

 

emerge -pv --nodeps

 

But b9Ace Got reason.

However ..... this is (imho) that this is a period of "transiction" from "forked" Funtoo portage and "unforked" ......

So something can be perfectly "synchronized".

 

If i'm wrong tell me ;)

 

Thanks and Hi To all :)