Re: building GNOME vs writing docs

[Simos Xenitellis <simos gnome org>]

O/H Brent Smith έγραψε:
> Shaun McCance wrote:
>> On Tue, 2006-02-07 at 21:29 +0000, Simos Xenitellis wrote:
>>
>>> O/H Shaun McCance έγραψε:
>>>
>>>> On Sun, 2006-02-05 at 12:07 +0000, Joachim Noreiko wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Our situation is that we need writers. We need to
>>>>> lower the barriers to entry, and one of them is
>>>>> expecting new doc writers to build themselves a
>>>>> complete GNOME from CVS before they can write
>>>>> documentation.
>>>>>
>>>>> My experiences would suggest that expecting doc
>>>>> writers to build GNOME themselves isn't feasible.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> [snipped insightful material for expediency]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Here are my ideas for discussion, please add your own:
>>>>>
>>>>> * provide binaries of apps that doc writers can
>>>>> download and run
>>>>> * ask people who can compile to write brief summaries
>>>>> of what's new, that doc writers can then clean up
>>>>> * make scripts that can build you a single app from
>>>>> CVS with one command
>>>>>
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>>>> One possible solution is to provide Live CDs at every
>>>> unstable point release.  Doing so would undoubtedly
>>>> help the bug hunting efforts as well.  But it's a huge
>>>> undertaking.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Another option is to create a virtual machine suitable for VMWare
Player. It should be easy for the developer and also for the
documentation writer.
>>> What you do here is you create such a virtual machine and let your
technical writers run them with their VMWare Player.
>>>
>>> Some links.
>>> 1. Free VMWare Player, available for Linux, Windows
>>> http://www.vmware.com/products/player/
>>> 2. Community developed virtual machines list
>>> http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/vm/community.html
>>>
>>> The main advantages of a virtual machine over a Live CD are:
>>> 1. The developer can easily create it and customise by removing
unneeded parts to make it small
>>> 2. No need to burn a CD
>>> 3. Faster to boot than CD as it resides on the hard disk
>>> 4. You can set the resolution by default to 800x600, which is
friendly to screenshots.
>>> 5. You can even take screenshot of GDM.
>>> 6. Screenshots are saved either on the host OS or from within the
virtual machine.
>>>
>>> I am not affiliated with VMWare.
>>
>>
>> Hot damn, I never even thought of that.  That's quite
>> possibly the coolest idea ever.  Whom do we need to
>> pester to make this happen?
>>
>> --
>> Shaun
>>
>
> I know Luis Villa was involved in creating live CDs last major release with snapshots of GNOME.   I'm not sure exactly how he did it, but
> creating the actual virtual machine is a breeze, even using free
> products such as a qemu (that remain compatible with VMPlayer).
>
> I usually have no problem getting jhbuild to build  everything
> (eventually).  I would be willing to create a virtual machine on a monthly basis during development release for this task.
> task.
This is great!
Could you please create such a virtual machine for the latest GNOME
Beta release?
I think the latest is 2.13.90,
http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/teams/releng/

I am happy to try out/provide feedback on the result.

Cheers,
Simos