GCONF Frustration!
 

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!

Yet again, I download a program that is using gconf for its settings and won't compile on slackware! I'm not keen on gconf. It seems too much like the windows registry and I much prefer the .rc file approach to settings.

Is it just me? We already have .rc files and Xresources? Do we really need a 3rd place to store settings?

The Linux world seems to be going more and more gnomish all the time. :(

I agree 100% about gconf looking like windows registry (not to mention lot of weird logs generated by gconf)
What is the program you want to install ? maybe there is a patch to use it without gconf?

Oh, it was nothing vital. I was just checking out SDLmame for a little bit of light entertainment and nostalgia, but this is not the first program I've come across that assumes that linux = gnome.

There are quite a few programs which look for gconf during configuration of sources, but it is not usually required at runtime. Even many GNOME programs don't need it at runtime. And, gconf is one of the first gnome programs to compile when building gnome -which means that it has less requirements than most gnome progs.

You can always build it and install it (or get the single package from one of the gnome-for-slack projects) and then remove it after you have compiled the program you want.

IMO, if these programs don't use gconf to run, then they should be patched to remove it from the build process.

Ken Zalewski of Linuxpackages.net has come up with a way to build SDLmame without GConf. Have a look at this thread.


-Andy

That's a nice find. I'll give that a go. Disappointing to see the author come out with the old "Well, shouldn't a modern distribution have that" excuse, but at least there's a work around. I'll give it a go.

Thanks Andy, much appreciated.

Just a quick update to say that Ken's workaround that Andy found works a treat. Unfortunately, it seems my p3-800 is only capable of running the mame roms at about 25% speed, but it looks like it would work properly if I had a little more horsepower at my disposal.

(I really need to get that replacement system bought).