Are you a GIMP user or Summer of Code student who's been wanting to
get involved, but having trouble building, or a bit intimidated by
the build process?
I'll be running a session on IRC to help anyone build GIMP on Linux,
as part of the OpenHatch "Build it" project.
The session will take place on #gimp on irc.gimp.org (also known as
GimpNet), on Fri, Apr 15, 0300 UTC -- that's Thursday night in the
Americas. To convert to your time zone, run this command on your
local machine:
$ date -d 'Fri Apr 15 03:00 UTC'
Or try this link:
http://www.worldtimeserver.com/convert_time_in_UTC.aspx?y=2011&mo=4&d=15&h=3&mn=0
This is a time that's usually fairly quiet on #gimp -- European
users don't fret, since it's pretty easy to get help there during
more Europe-friendly time zones. I'll hang around for at least two
hours; that should be plenty of time to build GIMP and all its
prerequisites.
Note: The #gimp IRC channel was recently under attack by trolls, and
it's possible that it may not be usable at the time of the session.
I've also posted this on my blog, and in case of trolls I'll update
the blog page with the name of an alternate channel to use.
http://shallowsky.com/blog/gimp/gimp-buildit.html
Preparation:
If you want to get your system set up ahead of time, I've put the
instructions needed to build on Ubuntu Lucid and other older Linux
distros here: Gimp Building Tips (for Linux). I might be able to
offer a little help with building on Macs, but no guarantees.
Mac and Windows users, or people running a very old Linux distro
(more than a year old) might want to consider an alternate approach:
install Virtualbox or VMware and install Ubuntu "Natty Narwhal"
(currently still in beta) in a virtual machine.
Of course, this isn't the only time you can get help with building
GIMP. There are folks around on #gimp most of the time who are happy
to help with problems. But if you've been meaning to get started and
want a good excuse, or you've been holding off on asking for help ...
come hang out with us and try it!
...Akkana
