Re: gEDA-user: gEDA-dev: Have we to bundle gaf packages?

[Dan McMahill <dan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Stefan Salewski wrote:
> This question is directed to developers and maintainers of gEDA/gaf (I
> think Dev mailinglist is currently not active)
> 
> You may wonder why I am asking:
> In the last days I had some discussion with the gEDA package maintainer
> of Gentoo Linux distribution. As you may know Gentoo is a source-based
> Distribution which tries to let its user many choices...
> 
> Gentoo uses scripts called ebuilds which handle install, update,
> uninstall of software from sources.
> 
> Currently we have for gEDA an ebuild which installs all of the gEDA/gaf
> core packages at once. This is libgeda, gschem, gnetlist, gattrib,
> gsymcheck, geda-symbols, geda-utils.
> 
> This may be fine for most users, but the true Gentoo way is to let users
> install only what they really need or want.
> 
> My current feeling is, that at least gattrib and gsymcheck are not
> necessary to use the other tools. Indeed I can imagine users who use
> gschem and gnetlist (with libgeda) but not gsymcheck.
> 
> My questions:
> 1. Is there a legal reason why all above tools must be installed only
> bundled?

no.

> 
> 2. Is there a technical reason for bundling?
> 
> If unbundling is possible:
> - Do all these tools need libgeda?

not all.  geda-symbols doesn't and I don't think geda-utils does either. 
  Note that the tools which use libgeda require a the specific libgeda 
which was released at the same time.

> - Can each tool (with libgeda) be used by each own?

some more than others.  For example, you could use gschem for drawing 
schematics for papers and other documentation and never care about 
netlisting.   Although you could run gnetlist without gschem installed, 
I'm not sure who has gschem schematics and wants to netlist them without 
being able to edit them.


> I think I read recently on this list that gschem needs geda-symbols for
> fonts. Is this true, and can we imagine that someone may have a desire
> to use gschem without the schematics-symbols?

I can easily picture someone only using their own symbols.  I'm not sure 
about fonts in gschem.

> 
> Last related question: My impression is, that gschem is currently the
> only one of all gEDA related tools that can use libstroke for "Mouse
> Gesture support" and that gschem works fine without libstroke
> if ./configure is called with option --disable-stroke.

I believe you are correct that only gschem uses libstroke.  gattrib is 
the only other GUI tool in that bunch and strokes don't make sense there.

> I think these questions have some rationale, maybe for other package
> maintainers or users too, so I hope not to wast too much valuable time
> of developers.

I've actually wished for a single unified build that installs all of the 
tools (perhaps with a --disable-foo to turn off the 'foo' program) at 
once.  This is just because when I update gEDA in NetBSD's pkgsrc, I 
have to update 10 packages.

Hope this helps.

-Dan




_______________________________________________
geda-user mailing list
geda-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user