Re: Intro+report and a random generator

[Ori Bernstein <rand chars gmail com>]

On Wed, 09 May 2007 00:00:39 +0200, Frej Soya <frej soya gmail com> said:

> So i have one question, how do I set up a system for developing GConf? 
> Just another user+jhbuild + fiddling? or a seperate virtual machine?
> basicly: How to hack on system stuff, and not bricking the machine. (I
> depend on it!)

The way I'd do it would probably be a combination of $PATH + $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
+ Xnest, maybe.

First, pick a testing location -- what I use myself is ~/coding/testing_root,
which means I don't need to be root to make install, and I can easily rm -rf
if something breaks horribly.

When you want to test your code (suggestion: always run the code you're hacking
on, if possible -- dogfooding means you catch the bugs sooner), set
PKG_CONFIG_PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and PATH for your user, and run whatever you
want to test. If things break, just unset the environment variables, and you're
back running the old stuff.

if I'm actually worried about bricking the machine, as in hosing critical
configuration or damaging the hardware, I suggest you go to schools and ask
around for parts. I've got an old system I assembled from free parts from my
old high school sitting on the desk beside me, and I test stuff on that.

Hope that helps.

--
   Ori
:wq