GNOME 2.0 Desktop Alpha 2: "Mr. Nilsson Sheds a Tear"

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

GNOME 2.0 Desktop Alpha 2: "Mr. Nilsson Sheds a Tear"
=====================================================

The GNOME 2.0 Desktop Alpha 2 release, "Mr. Nilsson Sheds a Tear", is ready
for your testing pleasure! It is available for immediate download here:

  ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/pre-gnome2/releases/gnome-2.0-desktop-alpha2/

Due for general consumption in March, the GNOME 2.0 Desktop is a greatly
improved user environment for existing GNOME applications. Enhancements
include anti-aliased text and first class internationalisation support, new
accessibility features for disabled users, and many improvements throughout
GNOME's highly regarded user interface.


Build Requirements
------------------

- The tarballs included in the release. :)

- Some very basic packages not distributed with this release, such as image
  libraries, popt, freetype and mozilla (for nautilus-mozilla). These should
  all be included with or available for your distribution.

- pkgconfig 0.8.0 (distributed with this release), gettext 0.10.39, byacc or
  pre-1.3 bison.

- python2 and expat xml modules for libglade (some modules require the
  libglade-convert script).

- openjade, Docbook DTD 4.1.2, and a valid system catalogue file for
  scrollkeeper (which in turn is required by many desktop components for
  documentation).

- If you are installing the GNOME 2.0 platform libraries alongside 1.4, you
  *need* recent GNOME 1.4 developer platform packages [ there will be a full
  GNOME 1.4.1 release soon to rectify this - it will also include some cool
  stuff too ;) ].

A (dia format) dependency graph for the developer platform and desktop
release is available on the dot.plan website:

  http://developer.gnome.org/dotplan/notes/


Quick FAQ
---------

Q. How do I use anti-aliased fonts?
A. Set the GDK_USE_XFT environment variable. eg.: export GDK_USE_XFT=1

Q. My build fails saying it can't find libglade-convert, but I've already
   built libglade successfully. What's all that about?
A. You *really* do need Python 2 and its XML modules to build libglade! It
   only offers a warning at the moment, but without these installed, it will
   not build the libglade-convert script.

Q. Who is using the GNOME 2.0 desktop at the moment?
A. Most of the core GNOME developers are using it every day.

Q. Can I still use my GNOME 1.x applications?
A. Of course! This release is just the desktop components, so your 1.x
   applications will still be required until they've been ported to the new
   developer platform.

Q. Are any applications being ported yet?
A. We've seen or used Gnumeric, X-Chat, GStreamer, and some others. There
   should be a few applications at least in beta mode when the desktop release
   comes out. When final, they'll be released as part of the Fifth Toe, GNOME
   Office, or Developer Tools collections.

Q. What about Galeon?
A. There's the small problem of Mozilla support for GTK+ 2.0, however
   Christopher Blizzard has been hacking on this, so the beginnings of a
   Galeon port shouldn't be too far behind.


Testers
-------

If you have incredible talents at breaking GNOME, perhaps even to rival
Telsa's infamous path of destruction (and excellent bug reporting of said
path), this alpha release is made for you!

When reporting bugs, use http://bugzilla.gnome.org/ or bug-buddy. Make sure
you choose the correct version number, as reports against versions included
with the alpha will be given higher priority than reports against
unspecified releases.

Note that by default, the software is built with debugging turned on, and
most programs spit plenty of output to your terminal as they run. This means
that whilst programs may run somewhat slower, the information supplied with
bug reports will be far more helpful to the maintainers. Before submitting a
bug report, try running the software from your terminal to see if it
provides extra information.


Bug Squad
---------

Whether you're testing GNOME 2.0 or not, you can still help out with the bug
busting efforts by triaging and tracking bugs in bugzilla. Join the bugsquad
mailing list, and hang out on #bugs (on irc.gnome.org) to get involved.

  http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-bugsquad/

For help with bugzilla accounts, email bugmaster gnome org 


Distributors
------------

This release is not intended for inclusion in distributions. However, binary
packages for bleeding edge testers on your platform are very welcome. Please
email the release team <gnome2-release-team gnome org> if you have built
packages for your platform.


Hackers
-------

When reporting bugs is simply not enough, and you'd prefer to make your own
(or, indeed, fix the ones you find), this release is also made for you! The
best places to send your patches are to the module maintainers, bugzilla or
the relevant mailing list.

Most modules include a TODO list file, and you can find a lengthy release
wide todo list on the dot.plan site (this will migrate over to bugzilla
soon). The modules most in need of attention are nautilus and sawfish.

  http://developer.gnome.org/dotplan/todos/


Happy testing!

- The GNOME 2.0 Release Team

-- 
   "Everyone says they like Free Software - not everyone is ready to make   
         the tough choices to make it happen." - Maciej Stachowiak