Helping to put FreeBSD GNOME onto more desktops

[Joe Marcus Clarke]

Alexander Leidinger wrote:
> Quoting Joe Marcus Clarke <marcus at freebsd.org> (from Mon, 09 Jun 2008 
> 20:16:06 -0400):
> 
>> Alexander Leidinger wrote:
>>> Quoting Michael Johnson <ahze at freebsd.org> (from Sun, 8 Jun 2008 
>>> 21:35:35 -0500):
>>>
>>>> I guess we should come up with a list of things we want in the 'easy 
>>>> GNOME
>>>> setup port'. I suggest we start a wiki/todo page so others can add 
>>>> their
>>>> ideas/plans.
>>>
>>> Good idea.
>>>
>>> What we would need (IMHO):
>>> - .desktop files for stuff which hasn't one (back in the 2.6 days, I 
>>> started a port for this, see 
>>> http://www.leidinger.net/FreeBSD/misc-desktop-files-2.6.1.tar.bz2 for 
>>> some rudimentary stuff)
>>
>> itetcu was also looking at creating entries by default for ports.  I 
>> wrote a program for him to extract PNG images from arbitrary 
>> executables, so something may come from this.  I do agree having 
>> additional desktop files for common GNOMEish apps (e.g. Wireshark) 
>> would be nice.
> 
> Why limiting this to gnomeish apps? Do you expect that GNOME users only 
> use gnomeish apps and KDE users only kdeish ones without having a look 
> at other stuff (TCL/python/perl/SDL/whatever)? For example I don't mind 
> having a desktop file for acroread.

Of course, you're right.  I was saying GNOMEish apps because they tend 
to come with icons (even if they don't install .desktop files).  But 
this idea applies to any application (even terminal apps).

> 
>>> - optional automatic config of the system (adding rc.conf stuff, 
>>> maybe usermount sysctl stuff, ...)
>>
>> This is easy as we can adopt some of the niceties done by PC-BSD (e.g. 
>> default PolicyKit.conf, devfs config, sysctls, etc.).
> 
> Do you have pointers?

Yes.  The HAL FAQ is a good place to start:

http://www.freebsd.org/gnome/docs/halfaq.html#q3

Additionally, PC-BSD has a pretty good default PolicyKit.conf file which 
covers media mounting:

http://svn.pcbsd.org/browser/pcbsd/trunk/system-overlay/usr/local/etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf

(users would need to be put into operator for this to work)

And then there's the regular GNOME FAQ which mentions some devfs.conf stuff:

http://www.freebsd.org//gnome/docs/faq2.html#q15

Finally, some good sysctls (though maybe we should leave core dumps 
enabled):

http://svn.pcbsd.org/browser/pcbsd/trunk/system-overlay/etc/sysctl.conf

Joe

-- 
Joe Marcus Clarke
FreeBSD GNOME Team	::	gnome at FreeBSD.org
FreeNode / #freebsd-gnome
http://www.FreeBSD.org/gnome