Re: [ANNOUNCE] GARNOME 2.17.3 -- "do not go gentle into that good night"

[guenther <guenther rudersport de>]

On Thu, 2006-12-07 at 17:06 +0000, Peter wrote:
> On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 17:33:03 +0100, guenther wrote:

> > You are correct in that this is not part of GNOME. However, the GNOME
> > dependencies are part of the official release set as well, and includes
> > the particularly "blessed" versions.
> 
> Where are these dependencies listed?
> 
> > Also note that live.gnome.org is a wiki -- don't trust it
> > unconditionally, especially concerning being up-to-date to the minute.
> > That's what we are for. ;)
> 
> Now that explains it all. But, as I asked, isn't there a definitive
> document that outlines requirements?

That depends on your definition...

The official list is, what the RT provides. A link to this info is given
with each official GNOME release announcement, which is sent to
gnome-announce-list. For 2.17.3 this is:

  http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-announce-list/2006-December/msg00022.html

However, there is no document containing the definitive requirements, as
in minimum required version, AFAIK. The l.g.o page mentioned before
probably is what comes closest WRT minimum deps. Instead, "blessed"
dependency versions are included.


> > Hope, this explains things...
> 
> Yes. As Jos. will tell you, I make a lot of modifications to garnome and
> indeed leave out large parts of it while compiling more and more into
> packages for my system. My goal is to integrate garnome into my system,
> not have it duplicate libraries here and there. And yes, I fully
> understand all the risks! It's just that for me, I only use a few gnome
> apps and do not use the gnome desktop, so having the whole desktop and wm
> available for me is overkill.
> 
> Unfortunately, for gnome, it does not have a build paradigm like kde
> does, so it's a lot more work. I can't imagine how much time you guys
> spent trying to set up garnome!

The initial setup already has been done before, fortunately. :)  Now it
is mainly maintenance. Integrate new packages, and check for their deps.
New dependencies show up every now and then, breaking the build, and
thus easy to catch.  The hard, time consuming parts are:

* Always be as up-to-date as possible, providing a bleeding edge distro,
  and in the case of stable releases, be *stable*. ;)

* Spot optional deps, that don't break the build, to enable additional
  features. Joseph does an awesome job here. Also tweaking configure
  arguments other than the common ones, and make it all work when being
  run by a user not interfering with the system.

* Fixing build issues during development. Not all hackers do run the
  latest versions of their deps, and during unstable cycles with
  changing APIs this breaks the build far too often...

* Dealing with multiple distros and supporting old systems, let alone
  support for non-Linux systems. And probably something more, that I
  just forgot right now... ;)


> For me, setting up gnome-platform only took two days. The desktop apps are
> much more time consuming. Hopefully, once set up, I will only have to
> update a few packages here and there when versions increment.
> 
> PITA and risky and certainly not pretty!

While we strongly advice *not* to install as root, you certainly are
free to. This is to prevent users from shooting their own foot, damaging
the system. Also to not have to support restoring a harmed system or
being responsible for the damage done. Your goal is different from the
usual GARNOME use case, which provides a full vanilla flavored GNOME
Desktop and more. However, nice to see that the GAR system is flexible
enough to easily adopt to totally different approaches. :)

  guenther


-- 
char *t="\10pse\0r\0dtu\0  ghno\x4e\xc8\x79\xf4\xab\x51\x8a\x10\xf4\xf4\xc4";
main(){ char h,m=h=*t++,*x=t+2*h,c,i,l=*x,s=0; for (i=0;i<l;i++){ i%8? c<<=1:
(c=*++x); c&128 && (s+=h); if (!(h>>=1)||!t[s+h]){ putchar(t[s]);h=m;s=0; }}}