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

[Chris]

On 2021-01-20 13:19, Aurélien Larcher wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 9:47 PM Tim Mooney via openindiana-discuss <
> openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org> 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.
> 
> 
> Something to keep in mind is that if you focus on another desktop then you
> may leave behind features like the Time Slider that we have spent a
> ridiculous amount of time porting from Gnome 2 to MATE and then
> resynchronizing at each MATE iteration.
Speaking for myself here;
The only real difference here, is gtk2 v gtk3. Granted, gtk3 *sucks* but
trans(lation|ition) isn't terribly bad. I guess my only concern here would
be Python. Any python2 involved with Time Slider? I just got done converting
some 30 (FBSD) ports from py2 to py3. Accept for the py-gtk(2) stuff, I 
didn't
find it terribly difficult. But some of the py-gtk2 stuff required my 
building
shims.
Thanks for pointing that out, Aurélien.
> 
> 
> 
>> 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.
>> 
>> Tim
>> --
>> Tim Mooney                                             Tim.Mooney at ndsu.edu
>> Enterprise Computing & Infrastructure /
>> Division of Information Technology    /                701-231-1076 (Voice)
>> North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105-5164
>> 
--Chris

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