lubuntu-desktop team mailing list archive

[Jonathan Marsden <jmarsden@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Naveen,

As with all Launchpad mailing lists, *please* hit "Reply to All" so that
your replies go to the list, not just to the one person who write the
message you are replying to :)

On 02/12/2011 01:20 AM, Naveen Agrawal wrote:

> I think I was not clear here. But I was talking about a knowledge
> base area for development work like bugsquad team has for bug handling.

If there is already a sufficient base of knowledge, go for it.  It took
years for the bugsquad docs to reach their current form, and they have a
much larger team of bug hunters/triagers to draw from.

> Also we need to form a bug reporting & triaging page for Lubuntu
> where we can link the already documented resources of Ubuntu which
> are common to Lubuntu. Adding information about how to subscribe and
> report bug related to Lubuntu.

How is that different from how to subscribe and report bugs in other
Ubuntu flavours?  Launchpad is the same for subscribing to bugs, and the
ubuntu-bug program is in Lubuntu just as it is in other flavours, as far
as I know.

If there is no difference, then we should (IMO) not create a special
separate Lubuntu page -- doing so just makes Lubuntu appear more
different than it really is from the other ubuntu's.

>> What particular aspects of Lubuntu's development do you find 
>> undocumented, that you would like to work on?  Which Lubuntu
>> specific bugs are you trying to develop fixes for?

> I was trying to work on lxpanel bugs.

That's LXDE development more than Lubuntu development, but OK.

> I tried to search for its development documentation but could not
> find a good resource except a small wiki page.

I'd guess that the number of developers of lxpanel is so small there may
not be a fully realized "team culture" for it yet, or else those who are
working on it are experienced developers who have not yet made the time
to create developer docs.  If you have specific questions you can email
PCMan, whose email address is the top one in the list of developers in
the AUTHORS file in the source tarball of lxpanel.

> I am looking for more detailed information about the lxpanel feature.

lxpanel is an app, not a "feature" -- I think?

> I am stuck with many question. How is the source code arranged into different files?

  apt-get source lxpanel

would get you the answer to that, in the form of the packaged source
tree to look through :)

> What are the coding guidelines for it?

Probably no formal ones, so just make any new code look like the
existing code ... if you submit a patch and someone says "first make it
fit our coding guidelines", they will tell you where to find the
guidelines :)

> I'd suggest hanging out on IRC in #lubuntu and #lubuntu-offtopic , and
> asking specific questions there, as one way to get over your initial
> difficulty.

> I  have been part of lubuntu since mid January and can be normally 
> found in #lubuntu  and #lubuntu-offtopic between 10:00-18:00(UTC) as
> 'Wolfpack'.

Cool!

> From now on, I will be buzzing you whenever I need help. :-)

Ah.... no :)  Please ask the channel, not just one person.

I am not an LXDE developer.  I am a fairly experienced programmer,
network and system admin, and I have done a moderate amount of Ubuntu
packaging work, so I am acting much more as a "generally useful
technical person" for Lubuntu, not an LXDE dev!

I've unpacked and read the lxpanel code, but have not patched it or
really examined it in depth line by line, so for detailed LXDE
questions, you'll be better off asking others.

>> Are you volunteering to work on creating this?  Sounds good to me :)

> I am ready to work on restructuring the wiki of Lubuntu. I am
> looking to add a basic guide for beginner developers at start. Then
> as we keep on fixing bugs we can add more information to it.

Sounds fine.  Just do it.  Phill W seems to be the local wiki expert if
you need help with the wiki stuff itself.

> Also, what I think is to create a small target for each week and
> divide the work into small teams.

We don't have enough active developers for that, I think.  Better to
just have the "lead developer" (currently Julien as far as I can see)
create a TODO list, and then devs can pick from that whichever items
they feel they are interested in and have the skills to handle.

Or, devs can just look at lubuntu-related bugs and fix any of them they
want to, which is how I recently got started with bug #650432 -- not
really a "needs code" bug at all, just editing an XML .menu file, but...
it got me started :)

> As developer, we can focus 1 package at a time .First trying to 
> collect all the information of that package as developer point of
> view. Then create a wiki page (taking help of our WIKI team) for it
> and add all the information to it and link it to Developer knowledge
> base area. After that we can work on bug fixing of that package and
> update more information from our experience.This way we will able to
> focus on our target and will create a knowledge base area for new
> developers.

I think persuading Julien and I to focus on one particular package for a
while is ... unlikely to succeed :)  Like every other volunteer, we'll
do stuff we want to do, fix bugs of interest to us, etc.  And you should
do the same.

>   Ubuntu bugsquad is the best example of it.

Ubuntu bugsquad are not developers.  They are triagers.  Different role
completely, and a *huge* team that benefits from working together on
large piles of bugs.  Lubuntu developers... are not a large team, and do
not have large piles of bugs against any one package to deal with.

I'm not sure your idea is likely to be workable for Lubuntu development,
but you are definitely free to try to make it work :)

Jonathan