[Conglomerate] Dependencies

[Dave Malcolm]

In the past we've had an informal policy of trying to minimise
Conglomerate's dependencies, restricting things to standard packages
likely to be found on relatively recent distributions.

Part of the reason for this was that I had a bad internet connection and
only had the standard packages myself.

Now that I've got bandwidth, I'm building the latest version of GNOME
from source locally, and I'd like to start pushing things a bit more.

I've been attempting to support GNOME 2.0, and this is too restrictive,
with GNOME 2.4 out, and GNOME 2.5 about to go into API freeze for 2.6

Here are some examples of the things I'd like to do/use:
- undo/redo drop down combos as seen in Gnumeric
- action-based GUI API, which should make it easier to do a big overhaul
of the menus and toolbars, which there was some discussion of a while
back
- recent files to appear in the File menu
- libgsf for loading/saving
- the new xml loading and saving APIs
- Gnome Office plugin system
- the new file selector to be properly integrated into the app
- probably more examples (please suggest them!)

I'd also like to chop out some of conglomerate's code and get it merged
into either GTK or one of the gnome libraries.

It's becoming a pain to maintain the code using the old GNOME 2.0
features, especially when there are much easier ways to do certain
things in the newer APIs.

So the question is: how much pain would it cause people if Conglomerate
started requiring more recent versions of Gnome/GTK etc? Potentially
very recent ones?

Some questions:
- What versions of these packages have you got installed?
- Are you building Conglomerate on top of the GNOME that came with your
distribution, or on top of a locally-built version of some kind?
- What's in the various versions of Debian?
- What's other distributions are you using, and what versions of GNOME
do they use?
- Can we can get away with GNOME 2.2?
- Ditto for GNOME 2.4?
- Ditto for GNOME 2.5?
- Ditto for Latest CVS?
- Does anyone use GARNOME; would it be OK to track what's in GARNOME?
- Ditto for any other build scripts? (I'm using jhbuild)

Please reply to the list so that we can get some discussion going.

[Roberto Rosselli Del Turco]

Post by Dave Malcolm
In the past we've had an informal policy of trying to minimise
Conglomerate's dependencies, restricting things to standard packages
likely to be found on relatively recent distributions.
Part of the reason for this was that I had a bad internet connection and
only had the standard packages myself.

Keep in mind that many users are still limited by a dialup connection
(this is my case, although I have a fast connection at the University).

Post by Dave Malcolm
Now that I've got bandwidth, I'm building the latest version of GNOME
from source locally, and I'd like to start pushing things a bit more.

I agree.

Post by Dave Malcolm
I've been attempting to support GNOME 2.0, and this is too restrictive,
with GNOME 2.4 out, and GNOME 2.5 about to go into API freeze for 2.6
- undo/redo drop down combos as seen in Gnumeric

Very nice.

Post by Dave Malcolm
- action-based GUI API, which should make it easier to do a big overhaul
of the menus and toolbars, which there was some discussion of a while
back

Yes!

Post by Dave Malcolm
- recent files to appear in the File menu

Yes! :)

Post by Dave Malcolm
- libgsf for loading/saving
- the new xml loading and saving APIs
- Gnome Office plugin system
- the new file selector to be properly integrated into the app

This is the only one I have doubts about.

Post by Dave Malcolm
- probably more examples (please suggest them!)
I'd also like to chop out some of conglomerate's code and get it merged
into either GTK or one of the gnome libraries.
It's becoming a pain to maintain the code using the old GNOME 2.0
features, especially when there are much easier ways to do certain
things in the newer APIs.
So the question is: how much pain would it cause people if Conglomerate
started requiring more recent versions of Gnome/GTK etc? Potentially
very recent ones?

AFAIC, no pain at all requiring the latest *stable* releases, could be a
little painful to require devel ones: wrt to the new file requester,
f.i., one should upgrade to the latest GTK+ libs, which could be unwise
in a production environment.

If you stay on the bleeding edge, you'll also risk to lose beta testers
(not everyone has a spare partition/box to play with experimental
stuff).

Post by Dave Malcolm
- What versions of these packages have you got installed?

gtk+ 2.2.4
gnome 2.4

Post by Dave Malcolm
- Are you building Conglomerate on top of the GNOME that came with your
distribution, or on top of a locally-built version of some kind?

Actually, I'm not building Conglomerate at all: good old G?tz Waschk
uploads an RPM packet in Mandrake Linux contrib 24-48 hours after every
new release (thanks G?tz! :)

Post by Dave Malcolm
- What's in the various versions of Debian?
- What's other distributions are you using, and what versions of GNOME
do they use?
- Can we can get away with GNOME 2.2?
- Ditto for GNOME 2.4?
- Ditto for GNOME 2.5?
- Ditto for Latest CVS?

Er ... see above. Personally, I wouldn't keep up with development.

Post by Dave Malcolm
- Does anyone use GARNOME; would it be OK to track what's in GARNOME?
- Ditto for any other build scripts? (I'm using jhbuild)

I tried to use those, but they really require a permanent connection to
the net.

My 0.2 ? cents, let's hear from other people.

Ciao

[Geert Stappers]

Post by Dave Malcolm
In the past we've had an informal policy of trying to minimise
Conglomerate's dependencies, restricting things to standard packages
likely to be found on relatively recent distributions.
Part of the reason for this was that I had a bad internet connection and
only had the standard packages myself.
Now that I've got bandwidth, I'm building the latest version of GNOME
from source locally, and I'd like to start pushing things a bit more.
I've been attempting to support GNOME 2.0, and this is too restrictive,
with GNOME 2.4 out, and GNOME 2.5 about to go into API freeze for 2.6
- undo/redo drop down combos as seen in Gnumeric
- action-based GUI API, which should make it easier to do a big overhaul
of the menus and toolbars, which there was some discussion of a while
back
- recent files to appear in the File menu
- libgsf for loading/saving
- the new xml loading and saving APIs
- Gnome Office plugin system
- the new file selector to be properly integrated into the app
- probably more examples (please suggest them!)
I'd also like to chop out some of conglomerate's code and get it merged
into either GTK or one of the gnome libraries.
It's becoming a pain to maintain the code using the old GNOME 2.0
features, especially when there are much easier ways to do certain
things in the newer APIs.
So the question is: how much pain would it cause people if Conglomerate
started requiring more recent versions of Gnome/GTK etc? Potentially
very recent ones?
- What versions of these packages have you got installed?
- Are you building Conglomerate on top of the GNOME that came with your
distribution, or on top of a locally-built version of some kind?
- What's in the various versions of Debian?

Sorry, still didn't find a conclusive answer. [1]

Post by Dave Malcolm
- What's other distributions are you using, and what versions of GNOME
do they use?
- Can we can get away with GNOME 2.2?
- Ditto for GNOME 2.4?
- Ditto for GNOME 2.5?
- Ditto for Latest CVS?
- Does anyone use GARNOME; would it be OK to track what's in GARNOME?
- Ditto for any other build scripts? (I'm using jhbuild)
Please reply to the list so that we can get some discussion going.
--
David Malcolm

Geert Stappers

[1] This posting is merely a 'I did see the request message'
If you know the Gnome version numbers in Debian,
feel free to report them.

[Telsa Gwynne]

Post by Geert Stappers

Post by Dave Malcolm
- What versions of these packages have you got installed?
- Are you building Conglomerate on top of the GNOME that came with your
distribution, or on top of a locally-built version of some kind?
- What's in the various versions of Debian?

Sorry, still didn't find a conclusive answer. [1]

[...]

Post by Geert Stappers

Post by Dave Malcolm
- What's other distributions are you using, and what versions of GNOME
do they use?

The collected wisdom (disclaimer: hyperbole may apply) of #gnome:

Debian stable has GNOME 1.4
Debian testing has a mixture of 1.4 and 2.2
RH 9.0 has GNOME 2.2
SuSE 9.0 has GNOME 2.2
Fedora Core 1 has GNOME 2.4
Gentoo has GNOME 2.4
Mandrake 9.2 has GNOME 2.4
Debian sid has GNOME 2.4

Not sure about how Ximian Desktop 2 affects any of those. But
effectively, the latest version of any i386-based Linux distro
other than SuSE has 2.4: but _only_ the latest version of that
distro. (I say that carefully, because I dunno about FreeBSD
or Solaris, and someone said that YellowDog had something older.
And this only works if you count Fedora Core 1 as the latest version
of RH, too.) So your next question is, "How many people sit on
ageing versions because they work fine for them?" :)

Post by Geert Stappers

Post by Dave Malcolm
- Can we can get away with GNOME 2.2?

Looks entirely plausible. 2.4, though...Depends how many people
really do upgrade immediately.

Also, I confidently expect people to say "No, no, that's wrong"
for half of those.

Telsa

[Pav Lucistnik]

Post by Telsa Gwynne

Post by Dave Malcolm
- What's other distributions are you using, and what versions of GNOME
do they use?
- Can we can get away with GNOME 2.2?

Looks entirely plausible. 2.4, though...Depends how many people
really do upgrade immediately.

I'd say if you're going to have milestone release in time for GNOME 2.6,
only support 2.4 and 2.6.
--
Pav Lucistnik <***@FreeBSD.org>
<***@oook.cz>
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[Dave Malcolm]

Post by Telsa Gwynne

Post by Geert Stappers

Post by Dave Malcolm
- What versions of these packages have you got installed?
- Are you building Conglomerate on top of the GNOME that came with your
distribution, or on top of a locally-built version of some kind?
- What's in the various versions of Debian?

Sorry, still didn't find a conclusive answer. [1]

[...]

Post by Geert Stappers

Post by Dave Malcolm
- What's other distributions are you using, and what versions of GNOME
do they use?

Debian stable has GNOME 1.4
Debian testing has a mixture of 1.4 and 2.2
RH 9.0 has GNOME 2.2
SuSE 9.0 has GNOME 2.2
Fedora Core 1 has GNOME 2.4
Gentoo has GNOME 2.4
Mandrake 9.2 has GNOME 2.4
Debian sid has GNOME 2.4

Thanks very much for this list!

Post by Telsa Gwynne
From this it looks like it's safe to require GNOME 2.2 without a great

deal of pain, except perhaps for Fink on Mac OS X (see email on
conglomerate-devel mailing list).

Post by Telsa Gwynne
Not sure about how Ximian Desktop 2 affects any of those. But
effectively, the latest version of any i386-based Linux distro
other than SuSE has 2.4: but _only_ the latest version of that
distro. (I say that carefully, because I dunno about FreeBSD
or Solaris, and someone said that YellowDog had something older.
And this only works if you count Fedora Core 1 as the latest version
of RH, too.) So your next question is, "How many people sit on
ageing versions because they work fine for them?" :)

Fair enough. Though surely if Conglomerate requires more recent
versions of GNOME, that's going to provide people with a good reason to
upgrade :-)

Now that GNOME uses time-based releases, we could have some kind of
statement like "Conglomerate aims to be easy to build on any
distribution up to a year old" (or similar), though really what I want
to do now is avoid pain for existing contributors (and hopefully get a
few more along the way).

Post by Telsa Gwynne

Post by Geert Stappers

Post by Dave Malcolm
- Can we can get away with GNOME 2.2?

Looks entirely plausible. 2.4, though...Depends how many people
really do upgrade immediately.

There are other options, such as requiring GNOME 2.2 for our 0.8
release, and then requiring 2.4 (or later?) for the 1.0 release. I hope
1.0 will have a big UI cleanup, which would be _much_ easier using the
newer GTK action-based API.

I'm still thinking all of this over, though.

Post by Telsa Gwynne
Also, I confidently expect people to say "No, no, that's wrong"
for half of those.
Telsa
_______________________________________________
Conglomerate mailing list
http://lists.copyleft.no/mailman/listinfo/conglomerate

[Jeffery von Ronne]

Post by Telsa Gwynne
Debian stable has GNOME 1.4
Debian testing has a mixture of 1.4 and 2.2

Debian testing recently went to gnome 2.4. At least for most
of the important packages.

[Dave Malcolm]

Post by Jeffery von Ronne

Post by Telsa Gwynne
Debian stable has GNOME 1.4
Debian testing has a mixture of 1.4 and 2.2

Debian testing recently went to gnome 2.4. At least for most
of the important packages.

That's good news; thanks for the information!

[Steinar Bang]

Post by Jeffery von Ronne

Post by Telsa Gwynne
Debian stable has GNOME 1.4
Debian testing has a mixture of 1.4 and 2.2

Debian testing recently went to gnome 2.4. At least for most
of the important packages.

Which tells me that one should read the entire thread before
posting... oh well.

[Steinar Bang]

Post by Telsa Gwynne
Debian stable has GNOME 1.4
Debian testing has a mixture of 1.4 and 2.2

[snip!]

Post by Telsa Gwynne
Debian sid has GNOME 2.4

Which one will be in sarge when it becomes stable? 2.2 or 2.4?