Re: [Gimp-developer] Getting contributors via OpenHatch

[Elle Stone <ellestone ninedegreesbelow com>]

On 06/02/2014 11:32 AM, Michael Schumacher wrote:
> > Von: "Elle Stone" <ellestone ninedegreesbelow com>

> > I've shown several people how to build GIMP from git.

> Was there a special part they needed help with?

No. They just wanted the quickest, easiest way to compile GIMP from git. 
I sent they my "cheat sheet" of commands and referred them to the 
article if any of the commands on the cheat sheet didn't make sense.

> I've read the build guide you posted yesterday, and was a bit confused by it.

Two years ago, when I wrote that article, it took me several days of 
trawling the internet before I succeeded in putting together a set of 
commands for building GIMP from git. I didn't consider that time 
well-spent, and I was hardly a newbie at Linux, the command line, or 
building software from source.

I wrote the article mostly to remind myself what the steps are. Also a 
lot of people on the GIMP user list were complaining about 2.8, so I 
thought it would be neat to figure out how to install 2.6, 2.8, and 2.9 
all at once.

If I were writing the article today, I'd write it differently. I wasn't 
putting it forward as a model of clarity but rather in case there were 
parts someone wanted to use.

I think the Calligra build instructions are in fact a model of clarity 
and would make an excellent template for writing up how to build GIMP 
from git.

> Regarding said build instructions:
>
> - the config.site approach as described in e.g. Martin Nordholt's blog works fine for me
>    I've never ever had to remember to set  environment variables again

Two years ago I did find the Nordholt article but I couldn't figure out 
what he meant by "config.site". I still can't. Looking at 
http://www.gimp.org/source/howtos/gimp-git-build.html, perhaps the line:

export ACLOCAL_FLAGS="-I $PREFIX/share/aclocal $ACLOCAL_FLAGS"

has something to do with "config.site"?

So I followed Shallowsky's and Lightning's instructions instead.

> Getting the dependencies is:
>
> - easy on reasonably recent Linux distros (apt-get build-dep, zypper -d, ...).

The Calligra build instructions have a nice set of "how tos" for the 
dependencies for the most popular Linux distros. This is a nice touch 
because it does vary from distro to distro. Not everyone already knows 
about these commands.

> Where OpenHatch will provide the most benefit:
>
> - enable user to discover that there is something beyond the icons of the desktop environment, for example a 
> command line interface
> - enable users to get to the point where building any software or documentation, including babl, gegl, gimp, 
> the gimp user manual, plug-ins, ..., becomes a no-brainer
>    - i.e. understanding messages like "needs libfoo..." and make it become "ahhh, I'll just get it from my the 
> package management"

It's not that compiling from source is such a big deal. But why not make 
it as easy as possible for people building GIMP for the first time? 
Maybe put in a few sentences here and there explaining the obvious to 
people for whom it might not be so obvious?

Elle