On 07/31 16:59, Nate Hill wrote:
> I'm probably asking an irrelevant question but, is there any standard 
> method for disabling/enabling/preferring specific dependencies which 
> are optional with respect the package.

No, there's not really a "standard" method. It takes extra effort for
developers to add things like this, although in some cases I think it's
necessary. See below.
 
> [root@cryogen ~] pkg_delete esound
> pkg_delete: package `esound-0.2.29nb1' is required by other packages:
>         kdemultimedia-3.1.2nb2
>         xine-lib-1.0rc10nb4

esound is one that I think we should have a global configuration
variable for. It would take quite some time to convert all (applicable)
packages to honor it, though. See pkg/21979

> Anyways, I'm looking for something similar to Gentoo's "USE Flags" 
> system...

I can't say I'm familiar with this "USE Flags" system, but certain
packages have build-time variables that can adjust the dependencies and
functions of a program. I'm not sure that they're _all_ documented, but
most should be described in pkgsrc/mk/bsd.pkg.defaults.mk