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On Tuesday 04 November 2008 15:36:54 Jorge Peixoto de Morais Neto wrote: |
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> >> I've found that the recent EINA library release for e17 has broken just |
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> >> about everything. |
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> >> |
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> >> Gentoo's overlay system should be simple enough to modify however after |
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> >> reading the fine manual I am no closer to understanding the appropriate |
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> >> course of action to create eina as a dependency in the overlay (I've |
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> >> bugged vapier@g.o to no avail) |
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> > |
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> > Mike is usually pretty quick with these things. |
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> |
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> "Mike"?!, What, Vapier's formal name is "Mike"? |
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Mike Frysinger - he's a busy man :-) He heads up the gentoo toolchain team, is |
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a lead kernel dev on the blackfin architecture, recently was (maybe still is) |
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on the gentoo council. And maintains an e17 overlay. |
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|
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Oh, he also has a regular job as well. |
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|
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> Back to important stuff, is the overlay in good shape (apart from |
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> this specific problem)? For example, is it compatible with Portage's |
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> new requirements for Manifest? |
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|
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Yes, it dumped digests a long time ago and has been manifest only for ages |
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now. I've been using it for years and supplement it with extra ebuild I find |
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on gentoo forums or write myself. This is usually modules, itaask, winlist, |
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etc etc and I keep them in my local provate overlay. |
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|
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Quality was always good, mainly because the e17 team were not ripping huge |
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chunks of code out of libs and putting them elsewhere. So the build process |
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stayed the same, only the code changed. Remember edb, evoak, med? It was ages |
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since that level of disruptive change went into svn. Until eina :-) |
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I think this is being driven by raster's work on openmoko. Finally, someone is |
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paying him to work on e17, and he's writing low-level libs to make e17 better |
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on tiny screens. Looks like a lot pf refactoring is going on, and we all just |
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have to wit till it settles down. |
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|
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> Also, why are the snapshot ebuilds so horribly outdated? Is it because |
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> Vapier is too busy to update them or because he just thinks that e17 |
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> is like Mplayer, a project where the developers actually take care to |
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> keep the svn code in good shape (only committing working code)? |
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|
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The snapshot ebuilds are not out of date - the e17 snapshots are :-) |
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|
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the team keeps mumbling that "they really ought to do this more often, like |
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once a month", then carry on doing it once a year... |
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> My computer has some bugs*. I am trying Xfce instead of e17 to see if |
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> the bugs were e17's fault, but the bugs continue. I wonder if I should |
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> go back to e17 |
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> 1) It is *very* fast and *very* lightweight (even when compared to Xfce) |
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> 2) It is vastly configurable and does things Xfce does not (like, for |
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> a quick example, remembering per-window configuration, fine tuning |
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> window borders, and even making windows borderless) |
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> but |
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> 1) It is unreleased; users have to compile code from svn. |
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> 2) Outputs a truckload of text to .xsession-errors. Does it mean that |
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> the code is full of little problems that cause warnings? Xfce, in |
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> comparison, only outputs two "assertion failed"s |
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> 3) Does not seem to have a Trash Bin or a System tray. I care little |
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> about these, though (and I imagine there are plugins to provide them, |
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> but I didn't bother to search). |
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|
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You want a trash bin? No problem: |
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|
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http://www.gurumeditation.it/blog/enlightenment/trash/ |
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> Do you think a user who expects a reasonably stable and bug-free |
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> environment (say, a user who accepts the latest Ubuntu, instead of |
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> demanding the stability of Debian stable) can rely on e17? |
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No, not in the current state. It was fine till 3 months ago. Users who want |
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that should be using one of the suse- or debian or ubuntu-derived distro that |
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run a stable e17 as the primary wm. Those maintainers try hard to use only |
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workable svn checkouts when building the distro. |
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|
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If you use e17 svn code, be prepared to act like a dev. That's what the e17 |
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team expects, that's how they build the thing currently and that's the price |
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we have to pay to get to use that wm. |
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|
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I myself got tired of eternally fiddling with e and have resorted to using kde |
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until things settle down... |
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-- |
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alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com |