building from CVS... some thoughts

[Louis-Dominique Dubeau <ldd step polymtl ca>]

Hello gnomers,

I see a lot of posts where someone says "hey, I can't build this
package from the CVS tree" and the problem is that they didn't update
the packages that this package depends upon.

Here's my tip of the day: when you update package A, update everything
that A depends upon.

I wrote myself a stupid perl script that just goes into the directory
where I put all the gnome packages and goes into each one and updates
it.  (I might eventually automate this so that it dials my ISP,
updates and disconnect automagically.)  By doing that, I can build
most packages without any problem.

You also have to recognize that sometimes some packages that don't
build cleanly are being hacked at a very high pace and thus are not in
a stable state.  Unless it is an essential piece of code, I just
modify the makefile to skip it.  Eg. I've been unable for a while to
build screensaver-properties so I just skipped it.  After my latest
cvs update, I was able to build it.

Life on the bleeding edge requires some resourcefulness.

	Regards,
	ldd