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2011-04-29, 16:01
The new Banshee development cycle has official begun and within comes a number of big changes. Before you read any further, if you are currently using the Banshee Daily PPA now is probably a good time to disable it (http://live.gnome.org/Banshee/CommonQuestions/TestingOnUbuntu). With that said, let’s look at what is already in the tree now and which with be in the first development snapshot 2.1.0 (currently listed on the Banshee calendar (http://banshee.fm/about/calendar/) as landing on the 11th of May).
A new dbus implementation
As has been known for a some time, the NDesk-dbus implementation Banshee has been using up till now has been largely unmaintained since 2007 and is a source of some very hard to track down problems (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=627441) in Banshee. Some time ago the existing NDesk-dbus codebase was forked in dbus-sharp, a new compatible and maintained alternative. A branch to transition Banshee to dbus-sharp has existed for a while and today it was merged into Banshee (http://git.gnome.org/browse/banshee/commit/?id=f46659dbf905bd4196ecda8b29ecc7c0396fe326), the Sound Menu extension was ported (http://git.gnome.org/browse/banshee/commit/?id=878b1183ae20c99c0f4586cd269501dd9188c98c) and the dependency change made official (http://git.gnome.org/browse/banshee/commit/?id=7baef049bd71d390901a9078821c207b76cca2fc). Additional problems might arise from this move, so it is again, a good time to opt-out of the daily testing unless you are willing to and understand the implications of testing this new code. The big win for users should be a more stable Banshee for the eventual 2.2 maintained release, and for Banshee it represents a chance to remove some old workarounds (http://git.gnome.org/browse/banshee/commit/?id=80e8db5aa0b32e2b3066210c9953a99e404f25a1) as well as have a DBus implementation with an active upstream.
What is not there is the biggest feature
Since the dependency changes were announced (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/04/banshee-2-1-small-version-increase-big-change/) all parts destined for*obsolescent have been removed from Banshee entirely. The things removed so far: The old HAL hardware backend (http://git.gnome.org/browse/banshee/commit/?id=15feb870a6f275e1c48123b3d69ce9d6d7200b65), The old ipod-sharp based iPod support (http://git.gnome.org/browse/banshee/commit/?id=996f03d96f8b451101a62565b8da1a2140d084d1), The bundled GStreamer equalizer (http://git.gnome.org/browse/banshee/commit/?id=a837ee0de4ea0a53572b81986e5442a466007d31) (which was included to added EQ support for distributions which shipped an insufficiently new GStreamer). The required version of Mono has also been raised to 2.4.3 (http://git.gnome.org/browse/banshee/commit/?id=f8772ba35da1c000f798a7e9b5bb4a503418b260). Additional cleanups have been performed to reflect the new foundations Banshee can now depend on being present.
Beyond 2.1.0
Larger porting efforts such as GTK#3 and GStreamer# are unlikely to make it into 2.1.0 but would be desirable to get in quickly I suspect so we might see this as early as the 2.1.1 release (June 8th (http://banshee.fm/about/calendar/)). The GTK#3 port of the backend library Hyena is actively being worked on (http://git.gnome.org/browse/hyena/log/?h=gtk3) and so far as I am informed compiles, but causes crashes when running the Hyena test tool. I suspect these*foundational*changes will have to go in, or at the very least would be desirable to get in, before starting to consider merging big features such as DVD support (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/12/banshee-dvd/) and the Video extension improvements (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/01/banshee-video-tv-shows-windows-and-hackfest-oh-my/).
It might get a little rocky, confused Dane says: “fare with caution and understanding (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/04/banshee-suckth-the-big-one-or-how-to-correctly-file-a-bug-and-stop-worrying/)“. With that, welcome to a new exciting development cycle.
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A new dbus implementation
As has been known for a some time, the NDesk-dbus implementation Banshee has been using up till now has been largely unmaintained since 2007 and is a source of some very hard to track down problems (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=627441) in Banshee. Some time ago the existing NDesk-dbus codebase was forked in dbus-sharp, a new compatible and maintained alternative. A branch to transition Banshee to dbus-sharp has existed for a while and today it was merged into Banshee (http://git.gnome.org/browse/banshee/commit/?id=f46659dbf905bd4196ecda8b29ecc7c0396fe326), the Sound Menu extension was ported (http://git.gnome.org/browse/banshee/commit/?id=878b1183ae20c99c0f4586cd269501dd9188c98c) and the dependency change made official (http://git.gnome.org/browse/banshee/commit/?id=7baef049bd71d390901a9078821c207b76cca2fc). Additional problems might arise from this move, so it is again, a good time to opt-out of the daily testing unless you are willing to and understand the implications of testing this new code. The big win for users should be a more stable Banshee for the eventual 2.2 maintained release, and for Banshee it represents a chance to remove some old workarounds (http://git.gnome.org/browse/banshee/commit/?id=80e8db5aa0b32e2b3066210c9953a99e404f25a1) as well as have a DBus implementation with an active upstream.
What is not there is the biggest feature
Since the dependency changes were announced (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/04/banshee-2-1-small-version-increase-big-change/) all parts destined for*obsolescent have been removed from Banshee entirely. The things removed so far: The old HAL hardware backend (http://git.gnome.org/browse/banshee/commit/?id=15feb870a6f275e1c48123b3d69ce9d6d7200b65), The old ipod-sharp based iPod support (http://git.gnome.org/browse/banshee/commit/?id=996f03d96f8b451101a62565b8da1a2140d084d1), The bundled GStreamer equalizer (http://git.gnome.org/browse/banshee/commit/?id=a837ee0de4ea0a53572b81986e5442a466007d31) (which was included to added EQ support for distributions which shipped an insufficiently new GStreamer). The required version of Mono has also been raised to 2.4.3 (http://git.gnome.org/browse/banshee/commit/?id=f8772ba35da1c000f798a7e9b5bb4a503418b260). Additional cleanups have been performed to reflect the new foundations Banshee can now depend on being present.
Beyond 2.1.0
Larger porting efforts such as GTK#3 and GStreamer# are unlikely to make it into 2.1.0 but would be desirable to get in quickly I suspect so we might see this as early as the 2.1.1 release (June 8th (http://banshee.fm/about/calendar/)). The GTK#3 port of the backend library Hyena is actively being worked on (http://git.gnome.org/browse/hyena/log/?h=gtk3) and so far as I am informed compiles, but causes crashes when running the Hyena test tool. I suspect these*foundational*changes will have to go in, or at the very least would be desirable to get in, before starting to consider merging big features such as DVD support (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/12/banshee-dvd/) and the Video extension improvements (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/01/banshee-video-tv-shows-windows-and-hackfest-oh-my/).
It might get a little rocky, confused Dane says: “fare with caution and understanding (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/04/banshee-suckth-the-big-one-or-how-to-correctly-file-a-bug-and-stop-worrying/)“. With that, welcome to a new exciting development cycle.
http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/EPPbkLdiZNBF9RPHHMm4F7LNs-g/0/di (http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/EPPbkLdiZNBF9RPHHMm4F7LNs-g/0/da)
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