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List:       kwin
Subject:    Re: Getting Involved
From:       Lubos Lunak <l.lunak () suse ! cz>
Date:       2008-11-05 16:20:08
Message-ID: 200811051720.08945.l.lunak () suse ! cz
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On Wednesday 05 of November 2008, David Nadlinger wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'd really like to contribute to the development of KWin in an effort
> to bring it at least on par with compiz (concerning performance as
> well es effects) and fix some shortcomings which really annoy me.

 You are of course more than welcome.

> However, I have no experience with KDE development so far.
> 
> What's the best way to get started?

 Pages with developer information are located at http://techbase.kde.org/, 
there are many that could help you. For example, 
http://techbase.kde.org/Contribute has links to various Qt/KDE tutorials. In 
short, you should know C++, learn Qt (e.g. do the Qt tutorial) and then you 
should be able to start working on KDE.

 Information specific to KWin is at http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/KWin , 
specifically the HACKING file has a collection of useful tips and 
information.

 If you will have any KWin-specific questions, read the docs there are, see 
the source code or ask here. After you've made some changes you'd like to see 
included, create a patch and send it here.

> I guess I should build and install 
> the whole KDE from SVN. Or is recompiling KWin sufficient if I'm just
> going to mess around with the compositing code a bit?

 It should be sufficient to just check out kdebase/workspace and just build 
and install kwin from there, replacing your system-wide KWin from packages 
with your own build. A bit safer would be installing it in an additional 
prefix and adding it to the prefixes KDE uses, as explained in 
http://techbase.kde.org/Development/FAQs/Technical_FAQ#How_can_I_install_additional_KDE_stuff_when_I_am_not_root.3F \
 (might possibly need also extending PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, etc.).

 Using system KDE as a base would however restrict you to the KDE version you 
have installed and development version of KWin may occassionally need 
functionality from development version of KDE libraries. In that case it's 
better to build your own KDE from sources, 
http://techbase.kde.org/Getting_Started has tutorials on this.

 Note that specifically in the case of KWin it's often better to use a 
separate X session for testing, as explained in the HACKING file.

> I am asking 
> because I can't get kdepimlibs to compile due to some build errors in
> kdepimlibs (undefined references to various Qt and KDE classes in
> KCMKResources)...

 That occassionally happens with development version of KDE (i.e. SVN trunk). 
Just try updating later again, if the problem persists for few days, the best 
way is probably to report it on the kde-devel@kde.org list.


 PS: Anything special that makes you think KWin is not on par with Compiz? 
While compositing support in KWin is indeed younger than Compiz, I personally 
don't think that current KWin has any significant shortcomings in performance 
or effects. I'm aware of only one relatively rare case where KWin performs 
worse, otherwise they should perform about the same or it is a thing that 
more depends on X/drivers [*]. As for effects, while KWin does not have the 
huge range of plugins or options Compiz does, compositing in KWin has been 
since beginning aimed more at being actually useful in practice and I think 
current KWin does pretty well there too (not that I'm stopping people from 
writing their personal flashy effect though). So, just curious :).

[*] Or simply people not understanding things, like I noticed yesterday 
somebody complaining that KWin painted only 70FPS, which was most probably 
because their monitor had 70Hz refresh rate.

-- 
Lubos Lunak
KDE developer
--------------------------------------------------------------
SUSE LINUX, s.r.o.   e-mail: l.lunak@suse.cz , l.lunak@kde.org
Lihovarska 1060/12   tel: +420 284 028 972
190 00 Prague 9      fax: +420 284 028 951
Czech Republic       http://www.suse.cz
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