Packaging xfwm/ce4; WAS Re: How to create a package

[Matthew Weier OPhinney]

-- Martti Kuparinen <martti.kuparinen at iki.fi> wrote
(on Monday, 02 June 2003, 02:30 PM +0300):
> I'm maintaining the XFce3 package in NetBSD and I recently started to look at 
> the new XFce4 stuff.
> 
> Before I start creating the packages I'd like to know if you guys are going to 
> bundle everything into one piece before the official 4.0 release? In other 
> words, can I perform a single configure/make in the top-level directory (like 
> in 3.8.18) or do I still have to perform several configures/makes in module 
> directories in certain order?
> 
> What I like to have is a single package called xfce and that would contain the 
> complete system. However, right now I think I have to create separate 
> packages for each libxfce* modules...

There seems to be a lot of clammoring for a single xfce package with the
complete system. I'd like to weigh in for a different vantage point.

Until recently, I was a blackbox user. I like blackbox. It has an
incredibly small footprint, nothing to clutter up the screen except what
you *choose* to put there, and it's clean. If you play around with it
enough, it can even be quite pretty.

Add to blackbox ROX-Filer with a pinboard, and you've got a very nice
minimalist desktop, complete with icons. If you want, you can even add a
panel using ROX (I didn't, 'cause I feel it's too thick and you can't change the
default icon size for it easily), or add gkrellm for a bunch of
functionality that's easily themed.

Why am I talking about blackbox on an xfce list? Because I started using
blackbox when I felt xfce3 was too big for my needs. I didn't *need* a
panel, I didn't *need* desktop icons. Sure, I could run xfwm3 without
the panel, but I still needed to have the panel installed to do this,
which meant that while xfwm3 didn't take much memory footprint, it still
took a bit of a storage footprint, more than it needed by itself.

The beauty of having xfce4 split into different packages is that you
don't need to install the entire desktop. When I first started trying it
out six weeks ago, I installed *just* the stuff necessary to get xfwm4
running. I have since added the panel and taskbar to that configuration,
and I'm *very* satisfied. I still use ROX-Filer for my pinboard and
backdrop; I like that file manager, and I have a lot of utilities built
around its functionality at this point.

So I *don't* have xffm, xfdesktop, or most of the extras installed. And
I like the fact that I have that *choice*.

The only thing I would see changing in the packaging structure at this
point is (1) to group the libraries into a single package, and (2) to
put xfce4 and xfce-utils in a package together. 

As to (1), since xfwm4 and xfce4 are dependent on libxfceutil,
libxfcegui, libxfcemcs, and xfce-mcs-manager, I'd suggest packaging this
as 'xfce4-base' or 'xfce4-common'; I would also suggest placing the
'xfce-mcs-plugins' in that package, as they're pretty basic to how
xfwm/ce4 work. My reasoning regarding (2) is that the description of
xfce-utils on the website even says that the panel expects them to be
installed. 

This would simplify installation, while still retaining the element of
user choice. Choice is, of course, why we all use OSS, right? ;-)

I hope that those making binaries for the various distros will also keep
this in mind as they package it all up; just because a person is using a
particular distribution does *not* mean that they necessarily want that
distro's maintainers to make their choices for them.

Just my opinion, of course.

-- 
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
matthew at weierophinney.net
http://matthew.weierophinney.net