Re: Plans for after FreeBSD-5.3-RELEASE.

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 17:51:17 +0200, Benjamin Lutz <benlutz_at_datacomm.ch>  
wrote:

> Hello,
>
>> Our ask is about comments, notes and approvals to:
>> ...
>> - patchs against xorg-clients (and sim) to move xinit/xdm config to
>>   /etc/X11
>
> Hm... I really like FreeBSD's way of keeping / as clean as possible, only
> adding 3rd party files to /usr/X11R6 an /usr/local. What about
> /usr/X11R6/etc? Btw, this is one area where I think it's a bad idea to
> emulate Linux, most Linux's /etc dirs are a mess.
>

I must disagree with this.

A port must install from tarball under his ${PREFIX}.
If it have anything else to do, it must use pkg-install.
But it may obey config out of ${PREFIX}
In fact, several ports obey config out of ${PREFIX} via rc-subr.

The use of ${PREFIX}/etc as the only point of control may get
you more problems that expected:

   - You can't share ${PREFIX} among machines with differents setups.
   - You get a very sparse config system.
	+ Most difficult to secure.
	+ Most difficult to automate.

Also, commons procedures with other OS are a real need.
At last here, I can name 4 different OS without moving from my seat.

And about what linux users do, if they has to setup and power all the
things they install, the config problem is as it seems.  Not a five min  
task.

>> - patchs to get an uniform processing of Xresources, Xprofile, ...
>
> Sounds good, but what exactly are you planning to change?
>

First, get a base document  about concepts and procedures.

Since new kids like gdm/kdm are in the town, old xdm documents are old.

Can someone cite what must be the standard procedure of gdm/kdm/xdm in a  
ICC world?

After get an initial backgrond, try to use only one xinit/xdm script  
system.
This is a normal task in most Unix OS. Here, gdm/kdm/xdm doesn't share  
configs.

At last in the kdm/xdm case (I'm not and gnome expert), they can share
Xstartup, Xsetup and so on.  Also ${HOME} scripts like ~/.xinitrc,  
~/.xserverrc ...

But I really think that this (and only this, not all xclients config) must  
be
with xorg.conf under /etc/X11/

>> - patchs against gnome (mainly gdm) to share as much config as posible
>>   with X11
>> - patchs against kde (mainly kdm in kdebase) with same purpose.
>
> Isn't this what freedesktop is doing anyway? If you can get Gnome and KDE
> to accept your patches, that's great. If it means maintaining (yet
> another) FreeBSD-specific set of Gnome and KDE patches, I don't think
> that's a good idea.
>

No.  I think this a wrong concept.  It impossible for Xorg, gnome or kde  
control
every aspect of the deployment of their products on every OS and system.

This is a task for the 'software packager'.

Even Slackware tweaks more the 'default install' that us.

I'm against an agressive patching on this.  But a 'FreeBSD background'  
must exist on key concepts.

> As for making KDE and Gnome into more of a "FreeBSD Desktop" (you've
> mentioned themes), I think it's a great idea. However, I'm sure I'm not
> the only one who likes the fact that FreeBSD provides the "vanilla
> version" of those two Desktop Environments, as opposed, for example, to
> the heavily modified KDE that SuSE ships. So may I suggest that you make
> your efforts here optional? Something like this maybe:
>
> cd /usr/ports/x11/kde; make install  # Installs "FreeBSD Desktop"
>
> cd /usr/ports/x11/kde; make install -DWITH_VANILLA # Installs Vanilla KDE
>

I prefer use what KDE has allready workout about this.

I can define a directory like ${PREFIX}/share/kdetheme and use $KDEDIRS in  
the default scripts.

IF you take a look at:
http://www.kde.org/areas/sysadmin/

You may notice that KDE has enough support for this and more even on a  
Vanilla install.

But you can't expect that KDE take our task.  This really matters to the  
software packager.

>
> Benjamin

--
   josemi

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