[0] GNOME Goal: Gettext Migration
https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/GnomeGoals/GettextMigration
This goal from 2016 is to migrate away from using intltool to help
translate especially GNOME application related files, and instead use
gettext directly now that gettext can handle a lot more file formats
[1][2][3].
The GNOME Goal: Gettext Migration [0] says:
"With gettext 0.19.8, there is really no need anymore to use
intltool or GLib's dated gettext glue (AM_GLIB_GNU_GETTEXT and
glib-gettextize)."
This version or later of gettext is available in the oldest supported
distributions except for SLES 12:
Distribution EOL gettext -V
Debian 10 2022-Aug 0.19.8.1
RHEL / CentOS 7 2024-Jun 0.19.8.1
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 2023-Apr 0.19.8.1
SLES 12 SP5 2024-Oct 0.19.2 [4][5]
As SLES 12 SP5 doesn't contain GParted and SLES 15 contains GParted
0.31.0 [6] loosing the ability to compile future GParted 1.5 release on
SLES 12 SP5 is acceptable.
Additionally the use of intltool and the associated GLib provided macro
AM_GLIB_GNU_GETTEXT was the source of the remaining warnings from
autoconf 2.71 seen in Fedora 36 and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS about the use of
obsolete macros:
$ ./autogen.sh
...
autoreconf: running: /usr/bin/autoconf --force
configure.ac:59: warning: The macro `GLIB_GNU_GETTEXT' is obsolete.
configure.ac:59: You should run autoupdate.
aclocal.m4:426: GLIB_GNU_GETTEXT is expanded from...
>> aclocal.m4:526: AM_GLIB_GNU_GETTEXT is expanded from...
>> configure.ac:59: the top level
configure.ac:59: warning: The macro `AC_TRY_LINK' is obsolete.
configure.ac:59: You should run autoupdate.
./lib/autoconf/general.m4:2920: AC_TRY_LINK is expanded from...
lib/m4sugar/m4sh.m4:692: _AS_IF_ELSE is expanded from...
lib/m4sugar/m4sh.m4:699: AS_IF is expanded from...
./lib/autoconf/general.m4:2249: AC_CACHE_VAL is expanded from...
./lib/autoconf/general.m4:2270: AC_CACHE_CHECK is expanded from...
aclocal.m4:111: GLIB_LC_MESSAGES is expanded from...
aclocal.m4:426: GLIB_GNU_GETTEXT is expanded from...
>> aclocal.m4:526: AM_GLIB_GNU_GETTEXT is expanded from...
>> configure.ac:59: the top level
configure.ac:59: warning: The macro `AC_TRY_LINK' is obsolete.
configure.ac:59: You should run autoupdate.
...
Note that use of AM_GLIB_GNU_GETTEXT was deprecated in GLib 2.47.5
released 2016-01-18 [7]. Newer versions of GLib are included in the
oldest supported distributions:
Distro Package containing Version
glib-gettext.m4
Debian 10 libglib2.0-dev-bin 2.58.3
RHEL / CentOS 7 glib2-devel 2.56.1
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS libglib2.0-dev-bin 2.56.4
SLES 12 SP5 glib2-devel 2.48.2
Therefore perform the migration described in the GNOME wiki documents
[0][1]. This involves:
1. Replacing the macros used in configure.ac;
2. Copying Makevars.template to po/Makevars and setting
PO_DEPENDS_ON_POT and DIST_DEPENDS_ON_UPDATE_PO to "no";
3. Replace @INTLTOOL_*@ macros in Makefile.am with rules to use gettext
to directly translate the relevent GNOME application files;
4. Removing (_) underscore marking translation prefixes from XML tags in
GNOME application files as gettext understands which tags of which
files need translating.
For reference are these commits in projects GNOME-System-Monitor [8],
Reversi [9] and Evince [10] making the same transition.
At this point "./autogen.sh && make" succeeds, at least on Ubuntu which
provides the instructions gettext needs to correctly translate .policy
files by default. These:
/usr/share/gettext/its/polkit.its
/usr/share/gettext/its/polkit.loc
are included in the base policykit-1 package.
[1] Migrating from Intltool to Gettext
https://wiki.gnome.org/MigratingFromIntltoolToGettext
[2] Using Modern Gettext
https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2016/07/21/using-modern-gettext/
[3] On the killing of intltool
https://blogs.gnome.org/mcatanzaro/2016/07/27/on-the-killing-of-intltool/
[4] SUSE package search, SLES 12 SP5, gettext
https://scc.suse.com/packages?name=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server&version=12.5&arch=x86_64&query=gettext&module=
[5] SUSE Long Term Service Pack Support
https://links.imagerelay.com/cdn/3404/ql/f3a083e9bcd34c76addd096d7f60ec00/long_term_service_pack_support_flyer.pdf
[6] SUSE package search, SLES 15, gparted
https://scc.suse.com/packages?name=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server&version=15&arch=x86_64&query=gparted&module=
[7] Deprecate GLIB_GNU_GETTEXT macro, use upstream gettext instead
6b577196ee
[8] [GNOME-System-Monitor] Migrate from intltool
9185b9c713
[9] [Reversi] Gettext migration (bgo#793040)
d22f560ac8
[10] [Evince] build: Migrate from Intltool to Gettext
4fd6821324Closes!107 - Migrate from intltool to gettext translation
An action file is always needed with polkit to describe the privileged
actions that are available to the subject (client program). For GParted
the only available action is to run the gparted shell script as root.
Note that the polkit action file will be installed into location
$(prefix)/share/polkit-1/actions. This is required by the GNU Coding
Standards [1] and to prevent 'make distcheck' from failing [2]. However
polkit only uses /usr/share/polkit-1/actions for it's action files [3].
This dilemma was discussed in this Bugzilla bug 776437 and on the
general Automake discussion email list [4]. The solution is to simply
document in the README file that a manual additional installation step
may be required.
The action file is marked as translatable with the underscore (_) of the
_description and _message tags identifying the string to be translated.
Use of INTLTOOL_POLICY_RULE in Makefile.am to merge translations into
the polkit action file necessitates increasing the minimum version of
intltool to 0.36.0 where it was first introduced in intltool.m4. This
will prevent GParted building on RedHat/CentOS 5 which only has intltool
0.35.0. But that doesn't matter because RedHat/CentOS 5 reached end of
life on 31st March 2017.
[1] GNU Coding Standards, 7.2.5 Variables for Installation Directories
https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#Directory-Variables
[2] Automake Manual, 27.10 Installing to Hard-Coded Locations
https://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/automake.html#Hard_002dCoded-Install-Paths
"My package needs to populate the installation directory of another
package at install-time. I can easily compute that installation
directory in configure, but if I install files therein,
'make distcheck' fails. How else should I do?"
[3] polkit(8), Declaring Actions
https://www.freedesktop.org/software/polkit/docs/latest/polkit.8.html#polkit-declaring-actions
"A mechanism need to declare a set of actions in order to use
polkit. Actions correspond to operations that clients can request
the mechanism to carry out and are defined in XML files that the
mechanism installs into the /usr/share/polkit-1/actions directory."
[4] Not installing to hard-coded locations vs polkit's fixed location
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/automake/2017-08/msg00015.html
Bug 776437 - GParted fails to run as root under Wayland
Mike Fleetwood