Banshee's Development Version

Banshee's source code repository is generously hosted by the GNOME project.

You will need the git package installed to check out a copy. The most current version of the source is called master. It can change minute by minute, and may not be stable at any given point. In fact, it may cause data loss or other bad things. You should only use it if you understand the risk. Otherwise, you should stick with official releases. Read more about using git.

Banshee

git clone git://git.gnome.org/banshee

Podsleuth

git clone git://git.gnome.org/podsleuth

For the following two, you will need the subversion package installed to check out a copy.

ipod-sharp

svn co http://anonsvn.mono-project.com/source/trunk/ipod-sharp

TagLib#

svn co http://anonsvn.mono-project.com/source/trunk/taglib-sharp

Building From Source

openSUSE 11.0 or higher

On openSUSE 11.0 you'll need to run the following commands to get all the build dependencies.

sudo zypper in git subversion autoconf automake libtool intltool gcc make
sudo zypper si -d banshee-1

Ubuntu

On Ubuntu, you'll need to run the following commands to get all the build dependencies.

sudo apt-get install git subversion autoconf automake libtool intltool gcc make
sudo apt-get build-dep banshee-1

Fedora

On Fedora, you'll need to run the following commands to get all the build dependencies.

sudo yum install git subversion autoconf automake libtool intltool gcc make
sudo yum-builddep banshee

Then you should cd banshee (move to the folder where you checked it out from git) and run ./autogen.sh followed by make. You can run Banshee from git alongside Banshee from a package by not running make install. Instead, run and test Banshee from git with make run.

Windows

We are working on getting Banshee to run well on Windows. XP, Vista, Server 2003, etc should all work. Follow these steps to get Banshee building:

  1. Make sure you have .NET 3.5 SP1 installed
  2. Install Gtk# for .NET (Mono itself is not necessary)
  3. Install msysgit with these options:
    • "Run Git from the Windows Command Prompt (only adds git to PATH)
    • Choose Plink, not openSSH (this is only important if you have a GNOME git account)
    • Choose to always use Windows line endings
  4. Optionally, install TortoiseGit for a GUI git environment
  5. Install one of MonoDevelop (free/open-source), SharpDevelop 3.0 (free/open-source), Visual Studio, or Visual C# 2008 Express Edition
  6. Download and unzip banshee-dev.zip. This is a snapshot of Banshee from git master, as well as some pre-built libraries.
  7. Get any changes made since the snapshot for both the banshee/ and banshee/bin/ directories, using git pull
  8. Open Banshee.sln in your IDE, change the build configuration from Debug to Windows, right click on the Nereid project, and build it
Github has a nice guide for getting started with git on Windows, including instructions for using git GUI tools.
Report bugs and file patches according to the normal process.

Are there Development Snapshot Packages?

We sometimes have developer/unstable releases between stable releases. The current one is 1.5.0. It's packaged for openSUSE and Ubuntu.

We don't have nightly builds, and we want to keep it that way, because it makes it too easy for people to run unstable code, likely without even realizing how unstable it may be. We spend a lot of time and effort in planning and making releases. We know when the code is ready to be tested by the masses. So, please feel free to run the development version by checking it out from git and building it yourself (and making backups of your data and running with --debug to be able to report bugs with line numbers). Having a svn checkout also makes it easy for you to test patches.