(2013-04-16, 01:34)tekno Wrote: How would you ever be sure this is bug free on linux and rpi if there are no test builds available for them?
It may sound negative but do not inhibit my free speech here...
Seems to be making a trail to an xbmc 12.3 if you continue on the current path. Maybe lunux and rpi are better off ignored? 12.X in general has already proven problematic. If not for work of folks like Sam at STMLabs and the xbian project we would not have much working at all on apple tv1 and rpi. They seem to work a lot to clean up the messes left by devs.
There wasn't any public test builds for v12.1 at all, so at least we're going in the right direction. Before v12.1, XBMC only had
one bug fix release that I can recall (I think we had some in the Xbox-exclusive-days, but that was before I was on the Team), which was v10.1. For Frodo to get a second bug fix release is a big deal, and it's only possible because of the hard work of everyone who makes XBMC. It takes more time to backport a fix so that it applies to both the future v13 and for v12. That means we're doing more work than we've ever done before to an already released version of XBMC.
The reason Linux and Raspberry Pi builds are not already available is because our build bot doesn't make builds for them. Linux (and the R-Pi is also Linux) works differently than other platforms. Plain and simple. It has nothing to do with preference or ignoring one platform or another.
We'll never be "bug free". We try to get as many bugs as possible, and be as stable as possible, but there will always be some bugs. The point of this thread isn't to catch general bugs, but simply to make sure that new bugs aren't introduced as a result of bug fixes. All the bug fixes going in are bugs that have been caught already, but simply applied to a stable v12 build. While v12.1 did introduce some minor bugs that were not in v12.0, virtually none of them where linux specific. Most bugs in general appear to be non-platform specific.
Most of our devs use Linux, and as a result of that, it's generally been less important to get linux test builds out there than it is for other platforms. Not to mention, it's a lot easier to compile for Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, etc, than it is for Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, or Android.
Due to the Raspberry Pi's nature of needing a barebones OS to get the most out of XBMC, we've always left building binaries of XBMC to OpenELEC, Raspbmc, Xbian, etc. Finding test builds for the R-Pi simply means asking those groups and their communities if they can build something that I can link to in the first post.
With all that being said, we still want to get test builds out there for others to easily test, but someone still has to make those builds. I'm also not a developer myself, and barely know enough about how to compile XBMC on Linux for some of my specific devices. Our actual developers are very busy with their own lives and with working on existing XBMC bugs and features, so support members like myself try to assist in ways like this, by organizing test threads or doing leg work.
XBMC is a community project. Yes, there is a TeamXBMC, but we wouldn't have XBMC without the greater community (nor would we have a TeamXBMC, since all of us were just "in the community" at first). TeamXBMC is just one way to orchestrate the over-all community that contributes to XBMC and its code. If there are no test builds for something, then guess who I'm going to ask? The community.
XBMC devs, both those formally apart of Team XBMC, as well as XBMC devs in the community, are working their butts off improving XBMC. For someone to say that they're "leaving messes for other people to deal with" couldn't be further from the truth.
I will keep using my free time to find a test build for Linux and R-Pi users. Anyone who would like to help make those builds, please contact me. To everyone else, stop asking. When one exists, it will be posted.