pkgsrc should be more friendly in regards to X11

["Jeremy C. Reed" <reed%reedmedia.net@localhost>]

I have a Dell Latitude D610 with NetBSD/i386 4.0 and its native XFree86 
4.5.0. I don't want to waste more time with that old X. Its i810 is not 
usable for me with its default configuration.

I am assuming that Xorg with its xf86-video-intel will do the right thing.

So I downloaded pkgsrc.tar.gz from NetBSD ftp site. Extracted and started 
building x11/xf86-video-intel. (First error was lack of -E option for 
pkg_info. I reported that in different email.)

Well I know I didn't have X11_TYPE defined, but many (probably over 15) 
X.org packages were installed.

Then xkbcomp failed during its configuration -- couldn't find X. This is a 
very common error if you see various pkgsrc/NetBSD forums.

pkgsrc should be more friendly.

xkbcomp should detect about its dependencies (within reason) before it 
ever extracts its distfile.

What is the benefit of pkgsrc being constantly unfriendly related to X 
builds over past couple years? We have had numerous and ongoing reports of 
people failing (for example trying to install xpm) simply because they 
don't know better.

In the case for xkbcomp, it wants x11 and xkbfile pkgconfig files.

Do we have any pkgsrc infrastructure to check for pkgconfig files?

Or what about the following?

Index: x11/xkbcomp/Makefile
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/pkgsrc/x11/xkbcomp/Makefile,v
retrieving revision 1.3
diff -u -r1.3 Makefile
--- x11/xkbcomp/Makefile        7 May 2007 20:13:27 -0000       1.3
+++ x11/xkbcomp/Makefile        29 Mar 2008 23:34:40 -0000
@@ -17,6 +17,12 @@
 
 CONFIGURE_ENV+=                APP_MAN_SUFFIX=1
 
+.include "../../mk/bsd.prefs.mk"
+
+.if !exists(${X11BASE}/lib/pkgconfig/xkbfile.pc)
+PKG_FAIL_REASON+=      "Missing xkbfile pkgconfig file. Consider using 
X11_TYPE=modular"
+.endif
+
 .include "../../x11/libX11/buildlink3.mk"
 .include "../../x11/libxkbfile/buildlink3.mk"
 

  Jeremy C. Reed