GNOME package guidelines - ArchWiki

# GNOME package guidelines

The GNOME packages on Arch Linux follow a certain schema.

## GNOME profile initialization

This section is being considered for removal.

Reason: This seems like it doesn't need to be mentioned at all anymore. (Discuss in Talk:GNOME package guidelines#)

There is no GNOME profile initialization anymore. The old line below should be stripped from any PKGBUILD:

    [ -z "$GNOMEDIR" ] && . /etc/profile.d/gnome.sh

## GConf schemas

Many GNOME packages install GConf schemas. These schemas get installed in the system GConf database, which has to be avoided. Some packages provide a `--disable-schemas-install` switch for ./configure, which hardly ever works. Therefore, gconftool-2 has a variable called `GCONF_DISABLE_MAKEFILE_SCHEMA_INSTALL`, whenever this is set, gconftool-2 will not update any databases.

When creating packages that install schema files, use

    make GCONF_DISABLE_MAKEFILE_SCHEMA_INSTALL=1 DESTDIR=${pkgdir} install

for the package installation step in the PKGBUILD.

GConf schemas need to be installed and removed in the `.install` file using `pre_remove`, `pre_upgrade` and `post_upgrade` and `post_install`. Use gconf-merge-schemas to merge several schemas into one package specific file, install or uninstall them with `usr/sbin/gconfpkg --(un)install $pkgname` The usage of gconfpkg requres a dependency on gconf>=2.18.0.1-4 (or gconfmm>=2.20.0).

## GSettings schemas

The GConf schemas will be replaced by GSettings schemas in the near future, but some applications (e.g. Empathy) already using it. GSettings uses dconf as backend, so all packages that contain GSettings schemas require dconf as dependency. When a new GSettings schema installed on the system, the GSettings database should be recompiled, but not when packaging. To avoid recompiling GSettings database on packaging, use the `--disable-schemas-compile` switch for ./configure. To recompile it on install, add the following line to the .install file using post_install, post_upgrade and post_remove:

    glib-compile-schemas usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas

## Scrollkeeper documentation

Starting from GNOME 2.20 there is no need to handle scrollkeeper anymore, as rarian reads OMF files directly. Scrollkeeper-update is a dummy these days. The only required thing now is to makedepend on gnome-doc-utils>=0.11.2.

## .desktop files

This article or section is out of date.

Reason: Transactional hooks in Pacman-5.0 make some of these .install requirements obsolete (Discuss in Talk:GNOME package guidelines#)

Many packages install Freedesktop.org compatible `.desktop` files and register MimeType entries in them. Running `update-desktop-database -q` in `post_install` and `post_remove` is recommended (package should depend on desktop-file-utils in this case).

## GTK icon cache

This article or section is out of date.

Reason: Transactional hooks in Pacman-5.0 make some of these .install requirements obsolete (Discuss in Talk:GNOME package guidelines#)

Quite some packages install icons in the hicolor icon theme. These packages should depend on gtk-update-icon-cache and should have `gtk-update-icon-cache -q -t -f usr/share/icons/hicolor` (WITHOUT leading slash) in the `post_install`, `post_upgrade` and `post_remove` function.

## .install files

This article or section is out of date.

Reason: gedit no longer has a .install file (Discuss in Talk:GNOME package guidelines#)

For many GNOME packages, all .install files look almost exactly the same. The gedit package contains a very generic install file: https://projects.archlinux.org/svntogit/packages.git/tree/gedit/repos/extra-x86_64/gedit.install

Basically, the only thing that has to be changed is the `pkgname` variable on top of the `.install` file. As long as pacman does not supply us with the `pkgname` variable, we need to supply it in the `.install` file. When packages do not have gconf schemas, hicolor icon files, or `.desktop` files, remove the parts that handle those subjects.

## Example

For an example of above rules, take a look at the gedit PKGBUILD and the `.install` file supplied above: https://projects.archlinux.org/svntogit/packages.git/tree/gedit/repos/extra-x86_64/

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- Package development

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