FreeBSD GNOME Project: GNOME 2.6 Upgrading FAQ

Contents

1. What is new in GNOME 2.6?
2. How do I upgrade to GNOME 2.6?
3. Oops! I ran portupgrade(1)! What do I do?
4. The upgrade failed; what do I do?
5. List of known GNOME 2.6 problems and their solutions
6. I have found a bug; whom should I alert?
7. I want the fame and glory of the FreeBSD GNOME team! What can I do to participate?

Full Text

1. What is new in GNOME 2.6?

   Although the canonical summary of new features can be found at http://www.gnome.org/start/2.6/notes/rnwhatsnew.html, some of the most exciting new features of GNOME 2.6 are:

   • Spatial Nautilus interface, designed to better reflect the logical organization of folders
   • Open/Save dialog box now has the features one would expect in an open/save dialog box
   • Intuitive application to change keyboard layouts
   • Sleek desktop background selector
   • Many new applications, applets, and UI enhancements
   • Extensive list of stability and speed increases

2. How do I upgrade to GNOME 2.6?

   NOTE: Do not run portupgrade(1) to upgrade to GNOME 2.6!

   The simple answer is this:

   1. CVSup your ports tree.
   2. Download the FreeBSD GNOME Project's upgrade script.
   3. Run the script as root. Read a good-sized book.

   More detailed instructions are as follows:

   1. CVSup your ports tree.

      To build GNOME 2.6, you need to obtain the 2.6 ports tree skeleton. This is most easily accomplished with CVSup. Simply obtain the latest ports tree, and you are ready to go. After you have obtained the latest ports tree, do not run a typical portupgrade(1).

   2. Obtain the upgrade script.

      It is not possible to upgrade from GNOME 2.4 to GNOME 2.6 by simply running portupgrade(1). There are new dependencies, and ports will build out-of-order, eventually causing the build to fail. Additionally, GTK+-2 cannot install when there are input methods installed which were linked against older GTK+-2 versions.

      To work around these problems, and to provide an update mechanism as simple as portupgrade(1), the FreeBSD GNOME team has produced a comprehensive upgrade script. The script can be downloaded from:

      http://www.FreeBSD.org/gnome/gnome_upgrade.sh

      Simply download that script, and save it to disk.

   3. Run the script.

      Once you have the script downloaded, run, as root:

      # sh ./gnome_upgrade.sh
         
      

      Hit ENTER to begin, answer any questions that pop up, and go watch an entire Monty Python anthology. Right after hitting ENTER at the beginning, you will be given the path to a logfile. By running:

      $ tail -f /path/to/logfile
           
      

      you can watch the entire upgrade process as it unfolds. It is hypnotic!

3. Oops! I ran portupgrade(1)! What do I do?

   Do not worry; hope is not lost. Running portupgrade(1) will cause the build to fail, but it will not cause any lasting damage to your ports tree, unless you have done something exceptionally creative. Simply download the gnome_upgrade.sh script and run it, and pretend that you ran it in the first place. Nobody needs to know that you did not read the directions first!

4. The upgrade failed; what do I do?

   Unfortunately, this is not only possible, it is highly probable. There are many possible valid GNOME configurations, and even more invalid starting points. If the script fails, follow the instructions in the error message to let the FreeBSD GNOME team know about the failure.

   The majority of build failures will be dependency-related issues. One simple way to resolve the problem is to remove the offending port, re-run gnome_upgrade.sh, and then reinstall the port when the upgrade process is complete.

5. List of GNOME 2.6 problems and their solutions

   Although GNOME 2.6 is certainly the best release to date (of course), there are a couple regressions that slipped in, both in the GNOME code and in its implementation within FreeBSD. Some of the more visible issues are:

   • #139500: [bonobo-activation-server] bonobo-activation-server does not terminate after logging out of GNOME. As a consequence of this, ssh-add will not work unless bonobo-activation-server is manually killed on a virtual console (UPDATE: This problem should be resolved in libbonobo-2.6.1).
   • #132154: [gnome-keyboard-properties] Keyboard repeat rate and delay are saved as floats
   • #137388: [gnome-terminal] gnome-terminal has a problem with the dynamic title and vim (UPDATE: See this email for a workaround to this problem)
   • #133690: [gnome-terminal] gnome-terminal does not exit the shell correctly (UPDATE: This problem should be resolved in vte-0.11.10_5)
   • #136966: [nautilus] Create Document -> Empty File gets wrong group
   • GnomeVFS-2 now has native support for sftp methods. Fully non-interactive publickey authentication works on all versions of FreeBSD, but FreeBSD 5.X is required for password or passphrase authentication.
   • Under some circumstances, the GNOME mixer may report that no mixer elements could be found, and it will be impossible to use the GNOME mixer or gnome-volume-control to change the volume. The GNOME developers are aware of the issue, and a solution is forthcoming (UPDATE: This problem should resolved in gstreamer-plugins-0.8.0_1).

6. I have found a bug; whom should I alert?

   Please read the FreeBSD GNOME Project's documentation on reporting bugs.

7. I want the fame and glory of the FreeBSD GNOME team! What can I do to participate?

   Please read our list of ways to get involved!