doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/gnome/docs/develfaq.xml
Hiroki Sato 52f6d56540 - Use /usr/bin/svnlite as SVN if available.
- Replace /XML/{doc,www}/ with /XML/ in SysId.
- Remove empty stylesheets in share/xsl and point share/xml/empty.xsl via
  XML catalog instead.
- Change the L10N layer in freebsd-*.xsl not to use localized XSLT
  stylesheets directly.
- Move share/xsl/* to share/xml and remove share/xsl.
- Remove obsolete share/web2c/pdftex.def.
2013-11-13 06:10:37 +00:00

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional-Based Extension//EN"
"http://www.FreeBSD.org/XML/share/xml/xhtml10-freebsd.dtd" [
<!ENTITY title "FreeBSD GNOME Project: GNOME Development Branch FAQ">
<!ENTITY email "freebsd-gnome">
]>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>&title;</title>
<cvs:keyword xmlns:cvs="http://www.FreeBSD.org/XML/CVS">$FreeBSD$</cvs:keyword>
</head>
<body class="navinclude.gnome">
<h2>Contents</h2>
<ol>
<li> <a href="#q1">What are development versions of GNOME all about?</a></li>
<li> <a href="#q2">Should I track development versions?</a></li>
<li> <a href="#q3">How do I obtain development versions of GNOME stuff?</a></li>
<li> <a href="#q4">How do I keep everything up-to-date and in sync?</a></li>
<li> <a href="#q5">What should I do when something does not work?</a></li>
<li> <a href="#q6">How can I help with the development versions?</a></li>
<li> <a href="#q7">What is the current state of development GNOME on
&os;</a></li>
</ol>
<h2>Full Text </h2>
<ol>
<!-- Q1 -->
<li style="padding-bottom: 0.5em"><a name="q1"></a>
<p><b>What are development versions of GNOME all about?</b></p>
<!-- A1 -->
<p>The development versions are the packages released by the GNOME
project that will eventually become the stable (release) versions.
There are three working branches of GNOME development:</p>
<ol>
<li><b>STABLE</b> - The applications and libraries in the stable
branch are considered "release quality," and are the versions that
appear in the &os; ports tree. The current stable version is
GNOME &gnomever;.</li>
<li><b>DEVELOPMENT</b> - In between stable releases are development
releases. Traditionally, GNOME development releases have odd minor
numbers (e.g. 2.3, &gnomedevelver;, 3.(n*2)-1). Development releases will
become stable releases, and move from alpha to beta quality during
their lifecycle. The development releases need testing by &os;
users to minimize the number of surprises when the new stable
versions are committed to the &os; SVN tree. This document is
about the development branch. At any time the development branch for &os;
might be based of a stable GNOME release. However it will be tagged
"development" here if it is the version that is work in progress by the &os;
GNOME team. The current development branch for &os; is GNOME &gnomedevelver;.</li>
<li><b>GIT</b> - Often newer-than-new, the GIT master versions of GNOME
applications and libraries are alpha quality, or often completely
unbuildable. The &os; GNOME project pays attention to, but
does not track the alpha quality code.</li>
</ol>
</li>
<!-- Q2 -->
<li style="padding-bottom: 0.5em"><a name="q2"></a>
<p><b>Should I track GNOME development versions?</b></p>
<!-- A2 -->
<p>If you are looking for a stable environment, absolutely not. Please
only track the GNOME &gnomedevelver; branch if you wish to help identify bug
and improve the &os; GNOME project. You will find little
sympathy if a development-quality GNOME application eats your
homework.</p>
</li>
<!-- Q3 -->
<li style="padding-bottom: 0.5em"><a name="q3"></a>
<p><b>How do I obtain the development versions of GNOME stuff?</b></p>
<!-- A3 -->
<p><a href="mailto:marcus@FreeBSD.org">Marcus</a> maintains a
SVN repository where all the development versions of
the GNOME components for &os; are housed. Instructions for
how to check out the development ports module and how to merge it
into the &os; ports tree reside on the entrance page to his SVN
repository. Please read carefully the instructions at
<a href="http://www.marcuscom.com:8080/viewvc/viewvc.cgi/marcuscom/">
http://www.marcuscom.com:8080/viewvc/viewvc.cgi/marcuscom/</a>.</p>
<p>During the development cycle, FreeBSD-specific caveats and
other useful information will be sent to <a
href="mailto:marcuscom-devel@marcuscom.com">
marcuscom-devel@marcuscom.com</a>. If you are tracking
the GNOME development branch, you <b>must</b> <a
href="http://www.marcuscom.com/mailman/listinfo/marcuscom-devel">
subscribe</a> to this list. You should also consider <a
href="http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-gnome">
subscribing</a> to <a
href="mailto:&email;@FreeBSD.org">&email;@FreeBSD.org</a>.</p>
<p>In order to help with bug reports, be sure to add the following
to <tt>/etc/make.conf</tt> so that gdb back traces contain
useful information:</p>
<pre>
WITH_DEBUG="yes"
</pre>
<p>GNOME has an excellent guide for getting <a href="https://wiki.gnome.org/GettingTraces">
useful back traces</a>.</p>
</li>
<!-- Q4 -->
<li style="padding-bottom: 0.5em"><a name="q4"></a>
<p><b>How do I keep everything up-to-date and in sync?</b></p>
<!-- A4 -->
<p>The short answer is that you need to use the <tt>marcusmerge</tt>
script to merge the development tree with the &os; ports tree.
The <tt>marcusmerge</tt> script is available
<a href="http://www.marcuscom.com/downloads/marcusmerge">
here</a>, and a man page on using the script is available
<a href="http://www.marcuscom.com/marcusmerge.8.html">
here</a>. This script will merge the development ports tree
into your main ports tree. From there, you can use
<tt>portupgrade</tt> or <tt>portmaster</tt> to upgrade from
&gnomever; to &gnomedevelver; and stay up-to-date afterwards.</p>
<p>The long answer is that keeping up-to-date with the GNOME
development branch is complicated. Sometimes components change
in a way that makes <tt>portupgrade</tt> or <tt>portmaster</tt>
fail, or causes strange end results. If you plan to track the
development branch, it is a good idea to join the
<a href="http://lists.FreeBSD.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-gnome">
freebsd-gnome</a> mailing list, as well as to join the
<em>#freebsd-gnome</em> IRC channel on FreeNode
(<tt>irc.freenode.net</tt>).</p>
<p>If all of this sounds scary, or you need a desktop that
"Just Works," you should stick with the &gnomever; version that
is available in the &os; ports tree.</p>
</li>
<!-- Q5 -->
<li style="padding-bottom: 0.5em"><a name="q5"></a>
<p><b>What should I do when something does not work?</b></p>
<!-- A5 -->
<p>It depends. If you think the problem is truly a bug with the
GNOME component, you can report a bug using <b>bug-buddy</b> or
the GNOME <a href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org">Bugzilla</a>
interface. If you think the problem lies in a &os; port, or
is FreeBSD-specific, send email to
<a href="mailto:&email;@FreeBSD.org">&email;@FreeBSD.org</a>,
or report the problem on the <em>#freebsd-gnome</em> IRC
channel on FreeNode.</p>
<p>Please forward all relevant bug IDs to
<a href="mailto:&email;@FreeBSD.org">&email;@FreeBSD.org</a>
so we can keep track of known issues. Thanks!</p>
</li>
<!-- Q6 -->
<li style="padding-bottom: 0.5em"><a name="q6"></a>
<p><b>How can I help with the development versions?</b></p>
<!-- A6 -->
<p>Now that work on &gnomedevelver; has started, we need
people to install it, and test things. If you are compiling
&gnomedevelver; by hand, be sure to build <a
href="&base;/gnome/docs/bugging.html">debugging symbols</a>.
Package users will have these symbols already.</p>
</li>
<!-- Q7 -->
<li style="padding-bottom: 0.5em"><a name="q7"></a>
<p><b>What is the current state of development GNOME on &os;?</b></p>
<!-- A7 -->
<p>&gnomever; is the latest version that was merged into the &os; ports tree.
Work is currently underway to make &gnomedevelver; stable.</p>
</li>
</ol>
</body>
</html>