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.