On Wed, 2012-04-18 at 17:55 -0500, Federico Mena Quintero wrote: > I've been having a terrible time trying to get something tested on top > of Gnome 3.4, all because I can't get 3.4 built from jhbuild. I'm too > old to build from tarballs, and my distro doesn't carry 3.4 yet. > > I wonder how people who hack on "core Gnome" do it on a day to day > basis. > [...] > I don't want to blame jhbuild; this is a larger problem with how we have > structured the development of Gnome. I'm happy that (e.g.) Colin > Walters is working on ostree > ( http://git.gnome.org/browse/ostree/tree/README.md ), but while it > seems like a truly fantastic way to install prebuilt binaries without > disrupting your system, it doesn't solve the problem of building those > binaries in the first place - correct me if I'm wrong! > > So this mail is about: how do *you* hack on Gnome on an everyday basis? > Do people get their source trees built only up to the modules they hack > on, and ignore the rest (been there, done that)? Do people wait until a > distro carries packages for development versions (too late in the game; > been there, done that)? How would *you* make Gnome score higher on the > Joel Test? IMVHO, the trick is to avoid to build the whole pre-defined module sets. Those are too big these days and probably you will not depend on all of them. This means using skip.extend extensively in your .jhbuildrc[1] or create(customize) your own module set file. [1] http://www.vuntz.net/journal/post/2010/09/23/My-love-for-jhbuild If you want to try Gnome Shell, then follow the instructions in http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell#Building. There is a script pointed there to check the system packages you will need, if jhbuild sysdeps/sanitycheck is not enough. Because of time restrictions, I usually try just specific applications and I use a different module set or jhbuildrc for each one. For instance, I do not try to build programs that touch the system (NetworkManager) or I am not interested (Mozilla) or breaks the build system regularly (I think everybody has a pet here :-). -- Germán Póo-Caamaño http://people.gnome.org/~gpoo/
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