From owner-freebsd-gnome@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jan 22 12:09:46 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-gnome@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BB77616A417 for ; Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:09:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from Bernard.Steiner@lahmeyer.de) Received: from nameserver.lif.de (nameserver.lif.de [149.233.100.11]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E164D13C467 for ; Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:09:45 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from Bernard.Steiner@lahmeyer.de) Received: from zdexv001.lahmeyer.com (zdexs001 [149.233.101.231]) by LIF.DE id MAA27304; Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:57:22 +0100 (MET) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 Content-class: urn:content-classes:message MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:57:21 +0100 Message-ID: <0E3C8932B8AFFF4294C69ABF71FB23656171C5@ZDEXV001.lahmeyer.com> X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: GNOME's newbiew woes and rantings Thread-Index: Achc7fJm4eVz+D92TQG8wUhhpORE4w== From: "Steiner, Bernard" To: Subject: GNOME's newbiew woes and rantings X-BeenThere: freebsd-gnome@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: GNOME for FreeBSD -- porting and maintaining List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:09:46 -0000 Dear GNOME, I would like to tell you a story about what happens when a seasoned = non-combatant BSD veteran tries and installs GNOME: In the beginning, I got 386bsd release 0.0 which was a pain to install = on an ESDI drive because it only supported one floppy drive and one hard = disk and refused to boot off the ESDI drive. This eventually got patched and 0.1 would let me boot off my beloved = ESDI drive. There were no further patches to 0.1, so eventually I installed FreeBSD = (though I admit that memory fails me as to whether that was 1.X or 2.X). Ever since then have I managed to = upgrade my system from source, so currently it runs 6.3-PRERELEASE (I track -STABLE). The system is now an AMD64 and indeed it runs X11. Sound runs wonderfully, DVD playback works, etc. So I decided now was the time to take a step forward and grabbed GNOME = from ports. This seems to have been a big mistake: There appear to be not many manual pages worth mentioning. Some processes (of which I am not sure what they are supposed to be = doing) seem to grab a CPU and just increase its core temperature as a CPUhog. Some processes SEGV on me straight away (abiword, some screen savers, = and others which I haven't the foggiest idea what they are supposed to = do). The number of *.core files I got since I started on GNOME simply = amazes me. Sometimes the system just freezes. And, yes, it is not just the screen = but also network IO is no longer possible which really bothers me because then my nice gmirror disks are un-synced = and also need an fsck so the next time the system boots it takes about = an hour to get past fsck and gmirror re-sync. I am very unhappy with this. Methinks I am missing something very basic and fundamental here. I just = cannot begin to assume that anybody would even consider using GNOME if = it really were as buggy as that. So I went to have a look at the FreeBSD=B4s GNOME how-to, and I must = admit there's not an awful lot there that might help me get this mess = sorted out. Nor is the GNOME site helpful in any way. Should I re-compile the whole lot with -g -bstatic and start a serious = gdb session ? Where should I start looking ? Thanks (and sorry about the MUA in use at the moment...) Bernard