On Thu, 15 Mar 2007, George Michaelson wrote:

> the message below is revealing: it even SAYS I said I didn't want nas.
> but it still makes it. 

Use -nas (minus nas).

PKG_OPTIONS.SDL="aalib arts esound -nas"
or
PKG_OPTIONS.SDL="-nas

> why is it so? why are 'currently selected options' overriding what I
> actually put in PKG_OPTIONS.SDL?

I don't know why it is not overriding it. It doesn't seem intuitive to me, 
but the pkgsrc guide does document it. Search for "the last setting that 
selects or disables an option is used".