[MacPorts] #20274: Update FAQ entry on python dependencies

[MacPorts]

#20274: Update FAQ entry on python dependencies
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 Reporter:  warren@…             |       Owner:  blb@…           
     Type:  enhancement          |      Status:  new             
 Priority:  Normal               |   Milestone:                  
Component:  website              |     Version:  1.7.1           
 Keywords:                       |        Port:                  
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Changes (by blb@…):

  * owner:  jmpp@… => blb@…


Old description:

> When looking into a failure to build Mercurial, I found that python
> requires an enormous amount of dependencies. I found some of tickets
> related to this:
>
> http://trac.macports.org/ticket/18957
> http://trac.macports.org/ticket/19416
> http://trac.macports.org/ticket/19907
>
> All of these refer to a FAQ entry:
>
> http://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ#pydeps
>
> I think that the workaround suggested in 19907 (install tk variant quartz
> as step one) should be documented in the FAQ. tk is the source of most of
> the irrelevant dependencies, and using the quartz variant was the
> solution to my problem.
>
> Suggested additional paragraph:
>
> The python26 package depends on tk, which itself has many dependencies,
> due to its dependence on X libraries. If you do not require the X version
> of tk, or do not care, you can install the quartz variant, which has
> fewer dependencies.

New description:

 When looking into a failure to build Mercurial, I found that python
 requires an enormous amount of dependencies. I found some of tickets
 related to this:

 http://trac.macports.org/ticket/18957 [[BR]]
 http://trac.macports.org/ticket/19416 [[BR]]
 http://trac.macports.org/ticket/19907 [[BR]]

 All of these refer to a FAQ entry:

 http://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ#pydeps

 I think that the workaround suggested in 19907 (install tk variant quartz
 as step one) should be documented in the FAQ. tk is the source of most of
 the irrelevant dependencies, and using the quartz variant was the solution
 to my problem.

 Suggested additional paragraph:

 The python26 package depends on tk, which itself has many dependencies,
 due to its dependence on X libraries. If you do not require the X version
 of tk, or do not care, you can install the quartz variant, which has fewer
 dependencies.

--

Comment:

 Note that the entirety of xorg-based dependencies for tk number at 17, but
 half are proto ports (just install headers).  If it's disk space you're
 worried about, all of those take about 12M of space (most being xorg-
 libX11), which is about 1/5 that of just python26.  For build times, those
 proto ones are extremely quick and the rest are quite fast as well (again,
 especially when compared with python26).

 Aside from those bits, what other issues do you have with tk bringing in
 these dependencies?  I ask because I've heard once or twice that tk+quartz
 may have problems with python's tkinter.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://trac.macports.org/ticket/20274#comment:1>
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