Falappa.Net

So you are on Ubuntu 7.04 and you want to compile the bleeding edge version of GIMP…

You’ve just checked out the HEAD revision out of the GIMP code repository (as roughly written here) and created your shiny local working copy, you fire up the terminal, read the HACKING file and find that you must have a lot of software development tools installed (a compile tool-chain). After all GIMP is a very big and complex GNOME/Gtk/X-window application (maybe one of the biggest if not the biggest).

You may now wonder which packages do I need to install on Ubuntu to get all the stuff I need to successfully compile GIMP?

Usually the trial and error process involves launching the compile process (autogen.sh and configure scripts in our case), look for errors caused by missing modules/libraries, lookup on the Ubuntu package database site which package the library/module belongs to and then install that package.

I went trough that process once, I report here my findings for the lazy programmer.

To compile the GIMP on Ubuntu 7.04 “Feisty Fawn” you must have the following packages installed:

• build-essential
• bison
• libglib2.0-dev
• libgtk2.0-dev
• gtk-doc-tools
• libart-2.0-dev
• python-dev
• python-gtk2-dev
• libtiff-dev

Depending on the extra functionality you would like to have (such as reading and writing some image file formats) you may also need the following optional packages installed:

• libmng-dev
• libxpm-dev
• libexif-dev
• libwmf-dev
• libgnomeui-dev
• librsvg2-dev
• libgtkhtml2-dev
• libpoppler-dev
• libpoppler-glib-dev

For the lazyest programmers here are the two apt-get lines (beware of line wrapping) to have those packages installed at once:

sudo apt-get install build-essential bison libglib2.0-dev libgtk2.0-dev gtk-doc-tools libart-2.0-dev python-dev python-gtk2-dev libtiff-dev

sudo apt-get install libmng-dev libxpm-dev libexif-dev libwmf-dev libgnomeui-dev librsvg2-dev libgtkhtml2-dev libpoppler-dev libpoppler-glib-dev

That’s all folks, happy compiling!

I have uploaded some photos taken in 2006 in a separate section

I bought a shiny new laptop recently to replace my old Dell Inspiron 8000.

The Asus A8j is a top notch machine with only one major drawback: the LCD display is not on the same level of quality of the other components.

The notebook is based on the Centrino Duo platform and comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 processor (2 Ghz clock), 2 Gb of RAM, a 5400 rpm 120 Gb SATA hard disk, an Nvidia GeForce 7700 based video card with 512 Mb of VRAM, Bluetooth 2.0 interface, a 0.3 Megapixel webcam, an SD memory card reader and a Dual Layer 16x DVD burner.

The laptop comes with Windows Vista Home Premium preinstalled but with an intelligent dual partition setup so everything is ready for a Linux installation.

I took the opportunity of trying the last Ubuntu distro, namely Ubuntu 7-04 “Feisty Fawn”.

At first I tried the 64 bit variant but due to some problems with the accelerated video drivers and the inferior availability of precompiled packages I reinstalled the plain 32bit variant.

Several things work out of the box after installing with the notable exception of sound (even if the audio chipset is correctly detected and a suitable driver installed).

I have got some useful info on how to better set-up Ubuntu on the laptop from this page.

This is how I proceeded:

1. Removed second vista partition
2. Partitioned disk:
   sda3 (primary) 100 mb /boot
   sda5 (logical) 2 gb swap
   sda6 (logical) 20 gb /
   sda7 (logical) 20 gb /home
3. Added packages sources: main restricted universe multiverse feisty-security feisty-updates feisty-proposed feisty-backports
4. Enabled nvidia accelerated graphics driver trough restricted drivers manager
5. Performed a system update
6. Installed additional english localization packages
7. Installed italian localization packages
8. Enabled 3d desktop effects (but without wobbling windows)
9. Corrected wrong default resolution by editing the xorg.conf
10. Installed meld, subversion, xscreensaver-gl-extra. additional fortunes, gnome-compiz-manager
11. Installed firefox-ubuntu-theme, additional gnome-themes metacity-themes and gtk2-theme-engines
12. Installed xmlto, leafpad
13. Installed epiphany(with extensions)
14. Installed additional multimedia codecs, brasero
15. Installed nfs and samba
16. Added “options snd-hda-intel position_fix=1 model=3stack” to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base to make sound work
17. Installed java6
18. Installed automake 1.9
19. Installed eclipse 3.22, updated it and downloaded wtp, subversive plugins
20. Added some more applications (mousepad, inkscape, avahi zeroconf browser, liferea, beagle, scribus, xaos, boot-up-manager)
21. Installed flash player plugin in firefox from this page

Currently the video doesn’t awake correctly from suspension or ibernation; I suspect this is due to the nvidia accelerated video drivers.

3D effects (compiz on AIGLX I believe) are working like a charm with the exception of a small problem in unmaximixing windows.

Conclusion: the laptop is really usable and exploits almost all the hardware. You don’t get all working with a simple install but the problems are not hard to solve.

I will spend some time on the remaining issues and post some updates.

More content from the previous site has been added.
Some link added and a new section with articles on the Eclipse IDE is available.