kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hey Carsten,

On 1/11/19 2:54 AM, Carsten Schoenert wrote:
> Hello Wayne,
> 
> I've some further questions regarding the planned version 5.1 and
> switching to GTK3+.
> 
> Am 17.12.18 um 16:18 schrieb Wayne Stambaugh:
>> The other option assuming you have the gtk3 variant of wxwidgets
>> installed (if not `sudo apt-get install libwxgtk3.0-gtk3-dev`) you can
>> make that your default wxwidgets version by running `sudo
>> update-alternatives --config wx-config` and select the appropriate
>> version of wx-config.  You should be able to build kicad normally.
>>
>> If you want to compile using phoenix and python 3 you need to install
>> python-wxgtk4.0.  I seem to remember having to install another package
>> to get the dev headers but I don't remember what that was off the top of
>> my head.  Once you have the python packages installed you can build
>> kicad with -DKICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=ON and
>> -DKICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=ON.	
>>
>> I've successfully build kicad this way on both Debian testing and Ubuntu
>> 18.10.
> 
> I was thinking (for some time) about building some random version of the
> current master branch, aka devel branch for 5.1, with a later upload to
> Debian experimental if things going well. But the main question for
> doing this is the question of switching finally to GTK3+/WxPython4 also
> by the preparations.
> 
> The background for doing a rather unusual upload of a random devel
> snapshot of KiCad to experimental is the starting freeze period for the
> next Debian release called Buster right on this weekend [1].
> 
> Doing a build with WxWidgets backend based on GTK3+ and WxPython4 isn't
> a real technical problem I guess. But it makes not really since to do
> this if this is contrary to the current plannings for 5.1.
> 
> So, what is the current status regarding to the default build options
> for the KiCad applications?
> I haven't looked really into the CMake files recently, is using GTK3+
> WxWidgets already the standard or is this planned soon to do the
> modification of the CMake files?
> The same question belongs to WxPython4/Phoenix.
> 
> Or if switching the default build options hasn't happen yet how useful
> would a build with GTK3+/WxPython4 than be?
> 
> 
> Given the freeze plan for Buster KiCad 5.1 I see a chance to get this
> version into Buster if KiCad 5.1 has entered Testing before 2019-03-12.
> That's not to far away. So let's use the time to make things happen if
> possible.
> 
> 
> [1] https://release.debian.org/buster/freeze_policy.html
> 

I doubt we will default to gtk3+/Phoenix anytime soon but I do think it
would be a good idea to create a build using this configuration so we
can get wider testing.  I'm guessing that for the most part, it's only
devs using this configuration which severely limits the amount of
testing we have.  Whether or not it would be a good idea to make this
the default configuration for Debian Buster and later is a another
thing.  I don't think we have enough good testing information at this
point to make and educated decision.  I'm opposed to it but my fear is
if things go sideways, we wont have the manpower to react in a manner
that wont alienate users.

Cheers,

Wayne