be more mindful with USE flags in the future

[magiruuvelvet]

In the past I pulled in a lot of bloatware and other unnecessary crap by just randomly enabling USE flags because of a "I might need that later" mindset. There was a time I used to just accept whatever bloatware, corpo garbage and other unwanted software binary distros shoved at me, though it always annoyed me a little bit. Those times are over.

6 years of experience with Gentoo and building my own distro taught me to be more mindful with the software I accept and install. Gentoo makes this possible with USE flags and patches. I have full control over my system and don't need to accept random unwanted software anymore.

In the following months I have a lot of clean up work planned to simplify my system and gradually free it from bloatware and unwanted software.

Tasks (list will be updated as needed)

• eliminate GObject introspection #14
• gradually remove systemd USE flags from userland applications #18
• remove most of GStreamer - can't be fully removed, but reduced to a bare minimum. note: GStreamer is mostly redundant and unused on my system.
  • figure out what to do with app-emulation/virt-viewer - net-misc/spice-gtk is the last package depending on GStreamer - could be fully removed
• reduce dependencies on dbus (only enable when actually necessary, avoid for optional features)
• ...

Drafts: (yet to be defined)

• remove GTK from host system (only 1 significant blocker left)
• remove GNOME libraries (why does non-GNOME software even depend on these?)
  • try to eliminate gnome-base/* and mask the entire category
• reduce dependencies on systemd (in fact, no regular application and desktop environment should hard-depend on it)
  • no third party is allowed to shove systemd user services at me. especially for graphical applications.

Notes:

• I'm not anti dbus, but it is certainly overused for many things. Only enable it for mandatory features like fcitx IME and nice-to-have features like MPRIS control. That being said, disable as many dbus USE flags as possible - most things don't need it.