Re: [Gimp-developer] Getting contributors via OpenHatch



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



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