18 May 2001 (updated 18 May 2001 at 23:56 UTC)
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Building gnome
Okay, this is getting frustrating. Before I go off on this
rant, I'd like to admit that, yes, I shouldn't try to
compile Gnome out of CVS, and yes, I should simply download
the source packages and compile from there.
Why compile? Well, there are no packages for Solaris
yet.
Ximian promises packages soon; but I can't wait.
Why can't I wait? Because, after 8 years of Unix
desktop at SEARHC, my boss is about to cave to user
pressure. The users want PCs to run MS-Office. The users
want PCs because they are prettier.
Some of you are going to say, "Let the users get what
they
need to do their jobs." Sure, fine. But they don't
need PCs!!!!! Some people do, yes. But they
already have PCs. Out of 450 desktops, only about 30 are
PCs. And because of this, our IS department has an
operating budget of less than 3% of the total of the
consortium's budget. Most users do quite well with X
terminals and (now) SunRays.
So, I figured I'd install Gnome and KDE, and show
everyone a
nice, pretty, easy-to-use desktop, with Nautilus and
Evolution. Get them excited, you know?
But Gnome is so Goddamned hard to compile, from
CVS.
There are so many conflicting dependencies; some core
modules require ORBit, and some require ORBit2. Fine, but
ORBit2 doesn't even compile. So I can't compile bonobo,
which requires oaf, which requires ORBit2.
Yeah. I know. I should just go back to source
tarballs. I
will. But Gnome desperately needs some sort of build
manager, something that can keep all the packages in sync
with the latest possible source from CVS. I like to test
Gnome, to play with new features, to see what it does. A
need to fill-- something I should write code for, yes? In
my copious free time perhaps?
*sigh* Back to tarballs with me. I'm not
looking
forward to it; but what the hell. As long as I can get
Evolution and Nautilus to compile. They don't even have to
compile on the same box. I have more than enough computing
power-- part of that 3% went to buying a couple of
additional E450s, and a bunch of Sun Fire 280Rs. I have
horsepower out the wazoo. (Whatever the hell that
means.)
Rant mode off. I've just had a bad day; spent hours
working
on Crisis Problems, and *all* of them turned out to be
operator headspace-- and not mine.
Oh, well. Such is life.
Bike Stuff
I think this weekend I will work on my bike, and not touch
the computer at all. I have a BMW R90/6. The starter relay
went out, and I found a great link pointing to using
alternate relays (as opposed to the Bosch stock relay). So
I will try that. Should be fun, don'tcha think? I'm really
excited about getting my bike back on the road.
Then I can ride the full 14 miles of road available to me.
So far, that's the only drawback to living on an island.
Not much space for road trips.