[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configure.ac:59: warning: The macro `GLIB_GNU_GETTEXT' is obsolete.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configure.ac:59: warning: The macro `AC_TRY_LINK' is obsolete.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configure.ac:59: warning: The macro `AC_TRY_LINK' is obsolete.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
Autoconf 2.71 on Fedora 36 and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS has started reporting
a number of warnings about configure.ac containing obsolete macros. One
of them is this:
$ ./autogen.sh
...
Processing ./configure.ac
configure.ac:17: warning: The macro `AC_PROG_LIBTOOL' is obsolete.
configure.ac:17: You should run autoupdate.
m4/libtool.m4:99: AC_PROG_LIBTOOL is expanded from...
configure.ac:17: the top level
...
AC_PROG_LIBTOOL is deprecated and the replacement is LT_INIT [1].
LT_INIT is available in all supported distributions, for example RHEL /
CentOS 7 has libtool 2.4.2 with LT_INIT defined in
/usr/share/aclocal/libtool.m4 serial 57. The last known distribution
without LT_INIT was RHEL / CentOS 5 [2].
Update accordingly.
[1] Libtool Manual, 5.4.1 The LT_INIT macro
https://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual/html_node/LT_005fINIT.html
"Macro: LT_INIT(options)
... AC_PROG_LIBTOOL and AM_PROG_LIBTOOL are deprecated names for
older versions of this macro; autoupdate will upgrade your
configure.ac files."
[2] 654cdc7335
Update AM_PROG_LIBTOOL to AC_PROG_LIBTOOL in configure.ac (#734718)
Closes!106 - Update AC_PROG_LIBTOOL to LT_INIT in configure.ac
Even though this is fixed the execution of configure as part of make
distcheck outputs this:
checking whether po/Makefile.in.in deletes intltool cache lock file... /usr/bin/grep: po/Makefile.in.in: No such file or directory
/usr/bin/sed: can't read po/Makefile.in.in: No such file or directory
/usr/bin/grep: po/Makefile.in.in: No such file or directory
no
make distcheck [1] performs a VPATH build with a read-only srcdir and
a separate writable build directory with files split between the two.
The relevant layout looks like:
./gparted-1.4.0-git/configure
./gparted-1.4.0-git/po/Makefile.in.in
./gparted-1.4.0-git/_build/sub/
And make distcheck runs configure like this:
cd ./gparted-1.4.0-git/_build/sub
../../configure --srcdir=../..
The file is ../../po/Makefile.in.in in this case, so not found by the
existing check. A simple investigation technique is to run make
distcheck, kill it shortly after configure completes and examine the
build tree. Definitely before make distcheck completes successfully and
deletes everything.
Fix by using $srcdir prefix to access the file. Also handle the case of
po/Makefile.in.in not existing, although this doesn't now occur in the
scenario fixed by this commit. And only patch the file if it's
writable, another case that doesn't occur in this scenario.
Relevant output line from configure run by make distcheck now looks
like:
checking whether po/Makefile.in.in deletes intltool cache lock file... yes
[1] GNU Automake, 14.4 Checking the Distribution
https://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/html_node/Checking-the-Distribution.htmlCloses!103 - Fix make distcheck failure found in GitLab CI job
unbuntu_test
On Ubuntu 22.04 LTS make distcheck fails like this:
$ make distcheck
...
ERROR: files left in build directory after distclean:
./po/.intltool-merge-cache.lock
make[1]: *** [Makefile:920: distcleancheck] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/builds/GNOME/gparted/gparted-1.4.0-git/_build/sub'
make: *** [Makefile:849: distcheck] Error 1
This was picked up by the GitLab ubuntu_test CI job after the Ubuntu
22.04 LTS release and the official Ubuntu docker image labelled latest
was updated to match, circa April 2022. This is a known issue with
intltool >= 0.51.0-5.1 [1][2][3], first included in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
The pending proposed fix is to also delete the left behind
.intltool-merge-cache.lock along with the associated cache file itself
in the intltool provided Makefile.in.in [4].
Applying a fix to the GitLab ubuntu_test CI job does nothing for fixing
it for us maintainers on our distributions. po/Makefile.in.in is not
part of the GParted git repository, instead it is copied from
/usr/share/intltool/Makefile.in.in by ./autogen.sh -> gnome-autogen.sh
-> intltoolize --force --copy --automake. Add a configure check which
patches po/Makefile.in.in as needed. This will fix it for those
building from git, and be a harmless check for those building from a tar
release. Configure output line looks like:
checking whether po/Makefile.in.in deletes intltool cache lock file... fixed
[1] Ubuntu bug 1712194 - Error when running make distcheck
https://bugs.launchpad.net/intltool/+bug/1712194
[2] Debian bug #991623 - intltool: make distcheck broken
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=991623
[3] Arch Linux bug FS#67098 - [intltool] latest patch for race condition
breaks some builds
https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/67098
[4] Remove cache lock file in mostlyclean
https://code.launchpad.net/~danbnicholson/intltool/intltool/+merge/406321Closes!103 - Fix make distcheck failure found in GitLab CI job
unbuntu_test
With the same case as from the previous commit, the very long "Mounted
on ..." text is now wrapped, but the text may not be left justified.
Slowly adjust the dialog width and see how the text wrapping is updated
to fit the size adjustment but the text is centred rather than left
justified.
This is because setting the halign property to Gtk::ALIGN_START does not
guarantee left alignment of text for wrapped or ellipsized Gtk::Labels.
Use the xalign property instead.
To set the xalign property there is a method in the GtkMisc (Gtk::Misc)
base class:
gtk_misc_set_alignment (Gtk::Misc::set_alignment)
However, GtkMisc (Gtk::Misc) was deprecated in Gtk 3.14 (Gtkmm 3.14)
and in Gtk 3.16 (gtkmm 3.16) set_alignment() was replaced with the
introduction of two new methods:
gtk_label_set_xalign (Gtk::Label::set_xalign)
gtk_label_set_yalign (Gtk::Label::set_yalign)
Add a check for Gtkmm method Gtk::Label::set_xalign() in configure.ac
and use it when available.
References:
[1] Gtk3 Reference Documentation - gtk_misc_set_alignment()
https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/GtkMisc.html#gtk-misc-set-alignment
"gtk_misc_set_alignment has been deprecated since version 3.14 and
should not be used in newly-written code. Use GtkWidget's alignment
("halign" and "valign") and margin properties or GtkLabel's
"xalign" and "yalign" properties."
[2] Gtkmm 3.16 Gtk::Misc Class Reference, set_alignment() method
https://developer.gnome.org/gtkmm/3.16/classGtk_1_1Misc.html#a52b2675874cf46a3097938756b9fe9e8
[3] GNOME BugZilla - EmptyBoxes: instructions_label's alignment is off
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=735841
[4] Gtk commit from 2014-09-16:
GtkLabel: add x/yalign properties
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/commit/d39424fc
[5] Gtk3 Reference Documentation - gtk_label_set_xalign()
https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/GtkLabel.html#gtk-label-set-xalign
[6] Gtkmm 3.16 Gtk::Label Class Reference, set_xalign() method
https://developer.gnome.org/gtkmm/3.16/classGtk_1_1Label.html#acee7d4e87d7cc14080a7b8ded5f84e5eCloses!40 - Limit wrapping labels
Before Gtk 3.22 GtkScrolledWindow propagated natural size to its
Children and so on to descendants. In Gtk 3.22 this was changed to
always request the minimum size. This was done because it is believed
to be a safer default (gives a better behaviour) in case of dynamic
content inside the scrolled window, that is, content that may change
allocated size. [1][2][3]
When the scrolled window content is not dynamic the natural size is
preferable because it gives a better looking layout and without any
downside.
In the case of GParted content which is not dynamic, so request the
scrolled windows to allocate children at natural sizes for Gtk >= 3.22.
The benefits of natural size allocation are evident in presence of
wrapping labels (for example inside the "Partition Info" dialog), that
with the minimum size request likely end up taking a very small width.
References:
[1] Gtk commit from 2016-08-31:
GtkScrolledWindow: Make propagation of natural child sizes optional
0984d1622d
"Making propagation of child natural sizes mandatory (or default,
even) was evidently a mistake as this causes dynamic content in a
scrolled window to resize it's parent when the scrolled window is
competing for space with an adjacent widget."
[2] Gtk 3.22 Reference Documentation -
gtk_scrolled_window_set_propagate_natural_width
https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/3.22/GtkScrolledWindow.html#gtk-scrolled-window-set-propagate-natural-width
[3] Gtkmm 3.24 Gtk::ScrolledWindow Class Reference,
set_propagate_natural_width() method
https://developer.gnome.org/gtkmm/3.24/classGtk_1_1ScrolledWindow.html#a2d4cb945688ecb8739efd70b18742779
[4] Gtkmm 3.21.6 NEWS
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtkmm/blob/3.21.6/NEWS
"ScrolledWindow: Added get/set_propagate_natural_height/width() and
the properties."
Closes!39 - Always request natural size inside Gtk::ScrolledWindow
Second part is to use yelp-tools to build and install the documentation.
Have to rename the help Manual from help/C/gparted.xml to
help/C/index.docbook in accordance with this note from the GNOME Goal:
Port to New Documentation Infrastructure [1]:
IMPORTANT: If this is for a DocBook document, the top-level DocBook
file MUST be renamed to index.docbook. Do a "git mv" and include
index.docbook in HELP_FILES.
Commits from gucharmap [4] and totem [5], projects which have DocBook
documentation, making this same change are also useful references.
[1] GNOME Goal: Port To New Documentation Infrastructure
https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/GnomeGoals/NewDocumentationInfrastructure
[2] Yelp > Yelp Tools > yelp.m4
http://yelp.io/tools/yelp.m4.html
[3] GNOME application developement overview / User help / Set up your
build system
https://developer.gnome.org/platform-overview/stable/dev-help-build.html.en
[4] gucharmap commit "Port to new documentation infrastructure"
3e1526c056
[5] totem commit "Use new documentation infrastructure"
59a6bd6064Closes!24 - Port to GNOME 3 yelp-tools documentation infrastructure
Details of old GNOME 2 gnome-doc-utils:
Migrating your documentation to gnome-doc-utils
https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeDocUtils/MigrationHowTo
First part is to stop using gnome-doc-utils to build and install the
documentation. Also since updating the OMF catalog was only needed for
GNOME 2 yelp, use of scrollkeeper is completely removed too.
Closes!24 - Port to GNOME 3 yelp-tools documentation infrastructure
These lines in the final configuration report from ./configure were left
behind [1] when determination of the underlying definitions were remove.
So they no longer report 'yes' or 'no' like the other lines in the file
configuration report.
Need partition table re-read workaround? :
Supports large sector sizes (> 512 bytes)? :
Remove them now.
[1] 8df975c7d1
Increase minimum required libparted to 2.2 (!22)
Closes!22 - Increase minimums to libparted 2.2 and glibmm 2.32
gdk_spawn_command_line_on_screen() is not present in Gtk3. The
documentation from Gtkmm 2.24 states [1]:
gdk_spawn_command_line_on_screen has been deprecated since version
2.24 and should not be used in newly-written code. This function is
being removed in 3.0. Use either g_spawn_command_line_sync(),
g_spawn_command_line_async() or GdkAppLaunchContext instead.
g_spawn_command_line_sync() and g_spawn_command_line_async() are screen
/ display agnostic, as such we would loose functionality. There is a
workaround, which involves setting the DISPLAY environment variable [2],
but it's a weak solution (and I don't know if it works on backends
other than X11).
GdkAppLaunchContext is an implementation of GIO's GAppLaunchContext that
handles launching an application in a graphical context [3]. Therefore
use GdkAppLaunchContext and GIO's GAppInfo.
GdkAppLaunchContext was introduced in Gtk2 version 2.14. The C++
wrapper Gdk::AppLaunchContext was introduced only in Gtkmm3 version 3.4
[4]. Bump the minimum required version of Gtkmm to 3.4.0 for this
requirement.
GAppInfo was introduced in GLib version 2.16. The C++ wrapper
Gio::AppInfo was introduced in Giomm version 2.16. Note that the
minimum required version for glibmm is already 2.32.
[1] GDK 2 Reference Manual, GdkScreen, gdk_spawn_on_screen()
https://developer.gnome.org/gdk2/2.24/GdkScreen.html#gdk-spawn-on-screen
[2] Migrating from GTK+ 2.x to GTK+ 3 - "Use GIO for launching applications"
https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/gtk-migrating-2-to-3.html#id-1.6.3.3.7
[3] GDK 3 Reference Manual - "Application launching"
https://developer.gnome.org/gdk3/stable/gdk3-Application-launching.html
[4] Gtkmm 3.4 Gdk::AppLaunchContext Class Reference, Detailed Description
https://developer.gnome.org/gtkmm/3.4/classGdk_1_1AppLaunchContext.html#detailsCloses#7 - Port to Gtk3
Use of Glib::thread_init() was deprecated in glibmm 2.32 [1]. The
oldest supported distributions have these versions:
Debian 8 glibmm 2.42.0
RHEL / CentOS 7 glibmm 2.56.0
SLES 12 glibmm 2.38.1
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS glibmm 2.39.93
Checking further the glibmm 2.32 reference manual says this about
Glib::thread_init() [2]:
Initializes the GLib thread system.
Deprecated:
Calling thread_init() is no longer necessary and no longer has any
effect.
However only some of the glibmm example programs had Glib::thread_init()
removed, others had it replaced by Glib::init() [3]. Again the glibmm
2.32 reference manual says this about Glib::init() [4]:
Initialize glibmm.
You may call this more than once. You do not need to call this if
you are using Glib::MainLoop or Gtk::Main, because they call it for
you.
GParted does call Gtk::Main and test_PipeCapture does call
Glib::MainLoop. Therefore just raise the minimum version to glibmm 2.32
and remove both calls to Glib::thread_init().
[1] Glibmm 2.32 NEWS file
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glibmm/blob/2.32.0/NEWS#L207
[2] glibmm 2.32, glibmm: Glib Namespace Reference, Glib::thread_init()
https://developer.gnome.org/glibmm/2.32/namespaceGlib.html#ab26d01c776801f1fff00753e97af4fc7
[3] glibmm commit "Avoid use of deprecates API in tests and examples."
3e0fbb22c0
[4] glibmm 2.32, glibmm: Glib Namespace Reference, Glib::init()
https://developer.gnome.org/glibmm/2.32/namespaceGlib.html#ac90aee10d0b90e3d8a96a86b5394f87bCloses!22 - Increase minimums to libparted 2.2 and glibmm 2.32
Raise the minimum required version of GNU Parted from 1.7.1 to 2.2,
released 2010-02-16 [1][2]. The oldest supported distributions, also
with gtkmm >= 2.24, since commit [3], are:
Debian 8 parted 3.2
RHEL / CentOS 7 parted 3.1
SLES 12 parted 3.1
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS parted 2.3
Raising the minimum required version allows removal of optional code
associated with these definitions:
* USE_LIBPARTED_LARGE_SECTOR_SUPPORT
Fallback code reporting ignored device with logical sector size
other than 512 bytes.
* ENABLE_PT_REREAD_WORKAROUND
Fallback code re-attempting to inform the kernel of partition
changes.
[1] GNU Parted 2.2 release announcement
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2010-02/msg00016.html
[2] NEWS file from GNU Parted 2.2
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/parted.git/tree/NEWS?h=v2.2
[3] 8b42bab1ee
modern-gtk2: Require Gtkmm version 2.24 (!17)
Closes!22 - Increase minimums to libparted 2.2 and glibmm 2.32
- Bugzilla has disabled reporting of new bugs.
- Existing Bugzilla bug reports permit new comments only.
- New bugs are to be created on GitLab issues.
Reference:
[GitLab] IMPORTANT: Mass migration plan
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2018-March/msg00023.htmlCloses!11 - Update bugzilla references
Increase the minimum required version of gtkmm to 2.16.0, thus allowing
removal of HAVE_GTK_SHOW_URI autoconf definition and associated fallback
code.
Bug 794253 - Desupport RHEL / CentOS 5 and raise minimum required
versions to glibmm 2.14.0 and gtkmm 2.16.0
Increase the minimum required version of gtkmm to 2.11.1, thus allowing
removal of:
* HAVE_SET_DEFAULT_ICON_NAME autoconf definition and associated
optional code.
* INSTALL_PIXMAPS_DIR automake conditional and associated make
instructions.
This is reversing these 3 commits, except for the higher minimum gtkmm
version:
1) a042107883
Only use Gtk::Window::set_default_icon_name method when available (#695279)
2) b09d6035cd
Add fallback method for specifying GParted icon (#695279)
3) d6baac2546
Only install fallback icon when required (#695279)
Bug 794253 - Desupport RHEL / CentOS 5 and raise minimum required
versions to glibmm 2.14.0 and gtkmm 2.16.0
Increase the minimum required version of glibmm to 2.14.0, thus allowing
removal of the HAVE_GLIB_REGEX autoconf definition and associated
conditional code. This is reversing commit, except for the new glibmm
minimum check:
456932846b
Implement fallback if Glib::Regex class is missing (#695279)
Bug 794253 - Desupport RHEL / CentOS 5 and raise minimum required
versions to glibmm 2.14.0 and gtkmm 2.16.0
Scrollkeeper and the associated OMF catalog files are used by the
GNOME 2 version of yelp to display the GParted help manual. To see how
this works try the following command:
yelp ghelp:gparted
GNOME version 3 and higher yelp do not require scrollkeeper or the OMF
catalog files to properly display the GParted help manual. And in fact
GNOME 3 deprecated the GNOME 2 method of building and installing GNOME
help documents altogether; including use of GNOME_DOC_INIT autoconf
macro, the gnome-doc-utils package and use of scrollkeeper.
[GNOME 3] GNOME Goal: Port To New Documentation Infrastructure
https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/GnomeGoals/NewDocumentationInfrastructure
Further, the next release of Debian, Debian 10 (Buster), will be
removing the scrollkeeper / rarian package.
rarian: Don't release with Buster
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=885657
GParted is still a GNOME 2 app using GNOME 2 documentation build system
using autoconf GNOME_DOC_INIT macro.
[GNOME 2] Migrating your documentation to gnome-doc-utils
https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeDocUtils/MigrationHowTo
This is needed to build GParted documentation on still supported GNOME 2
distributions RHEL / CentOS 6. So avoid requiring deprecated
scrollkeeper on GNOME 3 by automatically disabling scrollkeeper database
updates when the scrollkeeper-update command is not available.
Executable | Configure option used | Use scrollkeeper
scrollkeeper-update | on command line | when building help
exists? | | for GParted?
--------------------+------------------------+-------------------
Yes | <none> | Yes
Yes | --enable-scrollkeeper | Yes
Yes | --disable-scrollkeeper | No
| |
No | <any> | No
Note that because GParted is still using the GNOME 2 documentation build
system it still builds and installs OMF files. It is just that they are
not required with GNOME 3 yelp and this commit automatically disables
updating the scrollkeeper database when the scrollkeeper-update command
is not available.
Bug 743318 - configure script missing check for scrollkeeper dependency
GParted fails to display when run under Wayland [1][2][3]. This is
because by intentional design Wayland doesn't allow applications with
root privileges access to the display [4].
As an interim workaround make the gparted shell wrapper use xhost to
grant root access to the X11 server if root doesn't already have access,
but only when configured. Granting root access must be explicitly
enabled when building GParted like this:
./configure --enable-xhost-root
It defaults to disabled. When gpartedbin binary ends the shell wrapper
revokes root access only if it granted such access.
[1] GNOME Bug 776437 - GParted fails to run as root under Wayland
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=776437
[2] Ubuntu Bug 1652282 - GParted does not work in GNOME on Wayland
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gparted/+bug/1652282
[3] Fedora Bug 1397103 - gparted not working under Wayland
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1397103
[4] Common Fedora 25 bugs
Running graphical apps with root privileges (e.g. gparted) does not
work on Wayland
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F25_bugs#wayland-root-apps
Bug 776437 - GParted fails to run as root under Wayland
On CentOS 6 with polkit version 0.96 pkexec fails to execute gparted
shell wrapper as root like this:
$ env | grep DISPLAY
DISPLAY=:0.0
$ sh -x /usr/local/bin/gparted
...
+ pkexec /usr/local/bin/gparted
(gpartedbin:8011): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:
This is because polkit didn't support setting the DISPLAY environment
variable to allow execution of X11 applications until the introduction
of the allow_gui annotation by this commit in polkit 0.102:
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/polkit/commit/?id=7850d27017fed1834268a852350ae85381fbb110
Bug 38769 - pkexec: Support running X11 apps
Make configure only use pkexec version 0.102 or higher as the privilege
escalation program. Otherwise configure falls back to checking for the
other privilege escalation programs as it did before.
Bug 776437 - GParted fails to run as root under Wayland
Only install the GParted polkit action file when pkexec is being used as
the root privilege escalation program.
Bug 776437 - GParted fails to run as root under Wayland
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
Many of the distributions (confirmed for Arch Linux, Debian, Fedora,
OpenSUSE, RedHat/CentOS and Ubuntu but likely many others too) are now
using polkit as the mechanism to authorise privileged actions, including
using it to authorise GParted to run as root in their packages of
GParted. Therefore make the GParted configure script check for the
pkexec command.
Use pkexec with the --disable-internal-agent option when available,
preventing pkexec using it's own textual authentication agent. When
running GParted from a desktop icon or menu there is no terminal with
which to interact with the textual authentication agent to it can't be
used. The desktop's graphical agent must be running. This matches how
some distributions already use polkit in their own packages of GParted.
Required actions file will be added in the next commit.
polkit(8)
https://www.freedesktop.org/software/polkit/docs/latest/polkit.8.html
pkexec(1)
https://www.freedesktop.org/software/polkit/docs/latest/pkexec.1.html
Bug 776437 - GParted fails to run as root under Wayland
Mike Fleetwood