After making the FreeBSD port[1] for DIN, I think it is about time I attempt to
package and run it in NetBSD.
Most of the efforts I put in creating the FreeBSD port helped out here since the
code base was not too big and the utilities used for build had similar
syntax. With a few pkgsrc specific changes here and there I was able to get it
to build in the first few tries.
One of the major changes with the FreeBSD port was I made the dependency on
JACK[2] audio to be the default since doing ALSA based dependency in NetBSD
means it is a harder way to test the audio capabilities of DIN.
Making it run
One of the things I was eager to do was to commit DIN to the pkgsrc-current
using the commit rights I was granted as a memeber of the NetBSD developers. In
order to do so I had to show that DIN was working as expected in NetBSD.
Asking around in the mailing list for a review only wiz@ showed any interest. I
think the reason is not that people are ignorant it is a very unique use case,
most people don’t use NetBSD as a place of artistic expression especially using
tools like DIN. That being said I am very grateful for his efforts in trying to
help me out and see if DIN is able to work in NetBSD.
Despite multiple attempts by wiz@ to make DIN work with Jack as backend, it was
segfaulting every single time. I tried to get inputs from Jag (the author of
DIN) with the crash reports and did multiple back and forth to see if the issue
could be resolved but alas none of that yeilded any result. At one point Jag
even said he does not care if it did not work in NetBSD. sigh!!
All this time I was doing the development in a virtual machine and this does not
help with running UI based applications. The lack of enough RAM in my local
laptop and the lack of experience of using BSD as a desktop prevented me from
running it as my daily driver. So I eventually managed to get myself some actual
hardware where I installed NetBSD and decided to run it and see if it works.
After multiple attempts I managed to get a UI long enough to take a screenshot,
but this is not good enough for a commit to pkgsrc-current.
Conclusion
I need to visit DIN again once I manage to setup a proper work environment with
proper GUI. So that I can test UI based packaged applications for NetBSD. For
now it will rest inside the pkgsrc-wip repository until someone can figure it
out.
To quote wiz@
I don’t think there are experts on these tools in the NetBSD community.
I personally think it is not the lack of experts, every single person I know in
the community knowns a lot more about these things more than me, it is rather
the lack of passion to seek and fix such issues, though I am not personally
against this statement, imagine if was an issue with USB plugging causing a
kernel panic, commits and tests would be done in a matter of hours. I hope one
day I can join in the ranks of those users, while not forgeting the path of the
normies I am taking today.
References
- https://www.freshports.org/multimedia/din
- http://jackaudio.org/