Bug 268386 - editor/emacs-devel: PGTK option with X server is unsupported
Summary: editor/emacs-devel: PGTK option with X server is unsupported
Status: New
Alias: None
Product: Ports & Packages
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Individual Port(s) (show other bugs)
Version: Latest
Hardware: Any Any
: --- Affects Some People
Assignee: emacs@FreeBSD.org (Nobody)
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2022-12-15 01:25 UTC by Yoshiaki Kasahara
Modified: 2022-12-21 02:00 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
jbeich: maintainer-feedback? (emacs)


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Description Yoshiaki Kasahara 2022-12-15 01:25:39 UTC
editor/emacs-devel enables the "PGTK" option by default, but running the package with the X server emits a warning window saying:

You are trying to run Emacs configured with the "pure-GTK" interface under the X Window System.  That configuration is unsupported and will lead to sporadic crashes during transfer of large selection data.  It will also lead to various problems with keyboard input.

I believe most FreeBSD users still use X servers for their desktops, so could you please consider disabling the "PGTK" option by default? Or is this package for more adventurous people running Wayland?
Comment 1 Jan Beich freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2022-12-16 13:58:20 UTC
If stability is a real concern PGTK (and maybe XAW) can probably be moved into a flavor. Unfortunately, without provides/requires in Mk/bsd.port.mk that may require bloating USES=emacs packages with more flavors.

-devel suffix in emacs-devel already implies adventurous users: Emacs snapshots can cause crashes or break Elisp code.

According to bsdstats "emacs-nox" (63) is more popular than "emacs" (49) and "emacs-devel" (2) is more popular than "emacs-devel-nox" (0). The ratio discrepancy is curious and can imply a subset chose "emacs-devel" because of Wayland support.

Disclaimer: I'm not part of emacs@, just a Wayland user using emacs-devel but not represented in bsdstats (to avoid bias for my ports).
Comment 2 Yoshiaki Kasahara 2022-12-21 02:00:37 UTC
Thank you for providing the bsdstats data. The user base is small, and they can probably handle the issue by themselves. So, I think adding more flavor is excessive.

I'm fine to have PGTK enabled by default, but I prefer a gentle warning about PGTK in pkg-message similar to the native compilation comment.