Hi,
I have been using TDE for a while now for my old computers and I enjoy the retro aesthetics while being able to just use it with modern applications and I'm wondering if I am able to contribute?
While I love using it, there are a few nit picks that I would like to help with, specifically with helping in artwork or anything that is needed right now, which I hope I am able to contribute to. I also have worked on C/C++ projects before in university with my supervisor so I hope I may be of use.
I really enjoy the desktop environment, and I would like to be able to make it more usable as time goes on. I hope being on Arch Linux is not an issue for development, otherwise I'm willing to use a different distro.
I'm currently reading the wiki and getting acquainted with what ye deal with. I hope to be able to contribute in any way possible
Regards, Shauna
On 2026/02/09 08:06 PM, Shauna Recto via tde-devels wrote:
Hi,
I have been using TDE for a while now for my old computers and I enjoy the retro aesthetics while being able to just use it with modern applications and I'm wondering if I am able to contribute?
While I love using it, there are a few nit picks that I would like to help with, specifically with helping in artwork or anything that is needed right now, which I hope I am able to contribute to. I also have worked on C/C++ projects before in university with my supervisor so I hope I may be of use.
I really enjoy the desktop environment, and I would like to be able to make it more usable as time goes on. I hope being on Arch Linux is not an issue for development, otherwise I'm willing to use a different distro.
I'm currently reading the wiki and getting acquainted with what ye deal with. I hope to be able to contribute in any way possible
Hi Shauna, welcome to TDE. Sorry for the late reply, busy days. First thing to do is to get you accustomed with TGW (user guide here: https://wiki.trinitydesktop.org/TDE_Gitea_Workspace), I see you already have an account there.
Any major distro should be fine, although Debian-based are probably the easiest ones to build on since we have some nice scripts publicly available and the main devs are on Debian. I know Slavek also maintains Arch builds, so I assume you should be able to build from there too.
for order of building, you can follow the order of modules here (https://mirror.git.trinitydesktop.org/gitea/TDE/tde/src/branch/master/.gitmo...), although I use a slightly different order, see readme and scripts here (https://mirror.git.trinitydesktop.org/gitea/TDE/tde-packaging/src/branch/mas...). Note that the scripts are for debian-based distros, but the order of modules still holds.
As for contributing, you just have to choose what you want to work on. There are tons of things to do, from bug fixes to new features, to translations, to doc updates, new artwork and so on. TGW is the place for developers, so be around there. IRC and mailing lists are also a good place to communicate.
Cheers Michele
On Wed, Feb 11, 2026 at 4:07 AM Michele Calgaro via tde-devels < devels@trinitydesktop.org> wrote:
On 2026/02/09 08:06 PM, Shauna Recto via tde-devels wrote:
Hi,
I have been using TDE for a while now for my old computers and I enjoy
the retro aesthetics while being able to just use
it with modern applications and I'm wondering if I am able to contribute?
While I love using it, there are a few nit picks that I would like to
help with, specifically with helping in artwork or
anything that is needed right now, which I hope I am able to contribute
to. I also have worked on C/C++ projects before
in university with my supervisor so I hope I may be of use.
I really enjoy the desktop environment, and I would like to be able to
make it more usable as time goes on. I hope being
on Arch Linux is not an issue for development, otherwise I'm willing to
use a different distro.
I'm currently reading the wiki and getting acquainted with what ye deal
with. I hope to be able to contribute in any way
possible
Hi Shauna, welcome to TDE. Sorry for the late reply, busy days. First thing to do is to get you accustomed with TGW (user guide here: https://wiki.trinitydesktop.org/TDE_Gitea_Workspace), I see you already have an account there.
Any major distro should be fine, although Debian-based are probably the easiest ones to build on since we have some nice scripts publicly available and the main devs are on Debian. I know Slavek also maintains Arch builds, so I assume you should be able to build from there too.
for order of building, you can follow the order of modules here ( https://mirror.git.trinitydesktop.org/gitea/TDE/tde/src/branch/master/.gitmo...), although I use a slightly different order, see readme and scripts here ( https://mirror.git.trinitydesktop.org/gitea/TDE/tde-packaging/src/branch/mas...). Note that the scripts are for debian-based distros, but the order of modules still holds.
As for contributing, you just have to choose what you want to work on. There are tons of things to do, from bug fixes to new features, to translations, to doc updates, new artwork and so on. TGW is the place for developers, so be around there. IRC and mailing lists are also a good place to communicate.
Cheers Michele ____________________________________________________ tde-devels mailing list -- devels@trinitydesktop.org To unsubscribe send an email to devels-leave@trinitydesktop.org Web mail archive available at https://mail.trinitydesktop.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/devels@trinitydeskt...
Hi Michele,
Thank you for the reply.
I've been spending my time getting acquainted with the stuff you all are on and I've been comfortable around TGW a bit more. I've been on the IRC channel as well though I feel like it takes a while to get a response but it's the first time I've been on IRC.
The more I've been trying to build TDE, the more I feel like the first thing I want to work on is to rework what's available on the packaging repo, hence the issue I created on TGW ( https://mirror.git.trinitydesktop.org/gitea/TDE/tde-packaging/issues/538). Slavek did say he doesn't use the build scripts there, so they have been unmaintained, and I would like to work on improving them and make a pull request later. It's more of a convenience to me, and improved accessibility to those who want to build from source on Archlinux rather than cross compiling or what method Slavek does.
The next goal for me would be to rework the docker container too to have an isolated build environment so I avoid the whole "It works on my machine" kind of deal. Once everything is fleshed out I hope to have a pull request sometime soon. My only issues right now is that I have trouble compiling "tdebindings" and "tdegraphics" with a Make error I'm a bit ill-equipped to deal with for now, and "tdevelop" and "tdeaddons" with a Berkely db dependency issue but I do have db and db5.3 installed. I'll investigate more into this today. I'm focusing on the build aspect first so it makes contributing to the rest of the project easier for me since I have a solid base into building things without issue.
I'm really interested in the project and I want to help where I can, and I hope I can help maintain the Arch builds for this if I can be proficient with the project. I hope I can be of some use in the coming weeks.
Regards, Shauna
The next goal for me would be to rework the docker container too to have an isolated build environment so I avoid the whole "It works on my machine" kind of deal. Once everything is fleshed out I hope to have a pull request sometime soon. My only issues right now is that I have trouble compiling "tdebindings" and "tdegraphics" with a Make error I'm a bit ill-equipped to deal with for now, and "tdevelop" and "tdeaddons" with a Berkely db dependency issue but I do have db and db5.3 installed. I'll investigate more into this today. I'm focusing on the build aspect first so it makes contributing to the rest of the project easier for me since I have a solid base into building things without issue.
Hi Shauna, the Berkeley DB dependency is an open point, due to licence changes from Oracle and pulling of the package from some distros.
tdegraphics should be, unless you ran into the regular "there is a new libpoppler version out", which usually breaks things and requires a patch.
tdebindings I will reply in TGW.
I'm really interested in the project and I want to help where I can, and I hope I can help maintain the Arch builds for this if I can be proficient with the project. I hope I can be of some use in the coming weeks.
Every little helps, so whatever you can do will be welcome :-)
Cheers Michele
-
Michele Calgaro -
Shauna Recto