[OpenIndiana-discuss] distribution constructor for making OI spins?

[Chris]

On 2021-01-20 12:47, Tim Mooney via openindiana-discuss wrote:
> In regard to: Re: [OpenIndiana-discuss] distribution constructor for 
> making...:
> 
>> On 2021-01-20 04:09, Tim Mooney via openindiana-discuss wrote:
>>> In regard to: Re: [OpenIndiana-discuss] distribution constructor for 
>>> making...:
>>> 
>>>> I would love to have XFCE.
>>>> 
>>>> But as I know, the OI devs will not package other DEs. They stay royal to 
>>>> MATE.
>>>> 
>>>> You can't found any other DE's packages on the repo.
>>> 
>>> You might want to review the mailing list archives for this mailing list
>>> to get a clearer understanding of why that is.  It's been discussed
>>> before.
>>> 
>>> If you or Chris or someone else builds an entire desktop environment
>>> like Cinnamon and publishes a repo that is kept up to date, I would
>>> definitely give it a try, at least in a VM.  If someone does this and
>>> keeps it up to date for a long time and continues to contribute to OI,
>>> I would probably use that as my main desktop environment.
>>> 
>>> Just building it once, without a commitment to keeping it updated, isn't
>>> good for anyone, though.
>> TBH The only reason OI isn't my "daily driver" is the DE available. If I
>> had XFCE (what I currently use), or better, Cinnamon. I'd have a hard time
>> not using OI. Overall I like it better. But I'm (currently) pretty well
>> committed to FreeBSD as maintainer of some 160 ports, and I create
>> installs for all my servers && clients. I've been on BSD since Bill Joy
>> forked 386BSD, and hacked on various NIX' before that. But if I could
>> cobble up an OI I could justify as a "daily driver", and something I could
>> recommend to my clients. I'd make the switch.
>> Which brings me to why I initiated this thread. Since I need commitment
>> to justfy *my* commitment. I thought I'd send out a "feeler" to see if
>> there was any interest. Appears I'm not the only one. So I'm going to
>> "take the plunge". I'll start gathering all the information I need to get
>> all the dots in a line, so I can start production. Any pointers to help
>> shorten the trajectory would be *greatly* appreciated. As well as keeping
>> the wiki working. ;-)
> 
> I'm indifferent to Xfce, but when you start working on Cinnamon and deps,
> that's something that I would be happy to collaborate on and test.
That's my *ideal* target. I really like working in Cinnamon, and want to
transform my current workspace from XFCE to Cinnamon. So I'll definitely
include you in the loop when I start on it. :-)
>  oi-dev and the irc channels are your best source for help on porting,
> and I've gotten good feedback in PRs where I've asked questions or been
> stuck part way through updating or porting a package.
> 
> Also, rather than the wiki, I would highly recommend
> 
> 	http://docs.openindiana.org/
> 
> and then "HandBook->Building with oi-userland".  That's been migrated from
> the old wiki page and updated and had some corrections and a few
> clarifications added.  There may still be improvements that could be made, 
> so the
> first few times through the process, please pay special attention
> to places where that document misses information or appears incorrect.  If
> you mention the issues on oi-dev, I'll get PRs submitted (or you can,
> if you fork the docs too) to try improve things.
In all honesty; OI could *really* use some DOC love -- 
consolidation/updating.
I had a devil of a time discovering where the "truth" was located. It's 
currently
fragmented, and out-of-date -- mind you, I'm not shaking my finger at anyone 
here.
Just sharing my current struggle in this regard. If it were to get 
consolidated
I think many more might feel inclined to get onboard w/OI.
I'm currently using: https://github.com/OpenIndiana/oi-userland as my source 
of
truth. Having been a (ports/package) maintainer on FreeBSD for some 10yrs. 
I'm
finding it enough to read the shell framework to get up to speed. My only 
*personal*
nit; is that it's largely bash(1) based. Maybe it's because I'm more used to 
sh(1).
But I find bash to be a bit of a pig, by comparison. But I can get used to it 
-- or
just rewrite all of it in sh(1). ;-)

Tim, thank you *very* much for all the pointers, and support! :-)
We'll be talking Cinnamon, real soon now. ;-)

--Chris
> 
> Tim

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