Hi Bart,
On Tue, 18 Mar 2003, Bart Oldeman wrote:
> -- I may be blind but the instructions are up-to-date as far as I know.
Maybe not blind, maybe just a bit too close to it. :)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
On Tue, 18 Mar 2003, Ged Haywood wrote:
> I hope you'll do something about the instructions for building it
> before you put it out as 1.1.5. It's very confusing because there's
> so much of it that's out of date and inconsistent. It doesn't need to
> be completely rewritten but if you put some up-to-date instructions in
> a file called INSTALL then people who are used to doing
>
> ./configure
> make
> make install
>
> will be more much comfortable.
This is exactly what the file "QuickStart" is supposed to do -- please
tell me what you want to have changed in QuickStart
1. The name of the file. It should be INSTALL.
2. There should be a file called README as well. It should tell us (in less
than 24 lines:) what we've got here and to go read INSTALL.
3. Remove the reference to ViewDocs. If we go off and start reading the stuff
in docs/ then we'll come back not knowing what to believe and what not.
If people are confused by what it calls "BOLDFACE" formatting then why add
to the confusion with a crappyy script that doesn't clear the screen, offers
two different menu options (1 and 2) to view the same file; one (6) which
lies; and no way to exit? Why not just provide plain text files that really
are plain text files?
4. Remove the bit where you "strongly recommend" abandoning 1.1.4.15 in favour
of the 1.0.2.1 binary distribution.
5. While we're in the middle of compiling DOSEMU, the 'make' step tells us
to read QuickStart before compiling DOSEMU. Don't do that. If you're
going to do it at all, tell us at the beginning and offer to STOP to allow
us to do it.
6. Explain that we should normally use setup-dosemu to modify compiletime-settings
but
7. explain that setup-dosemu is broken.
8. Don't refer to scripts with the syntax "./setup-dosemu" because the document
will get moved (see 3.(6) above) and the script won't be there any more. At
least use a path relative to (for example) the top of the DOSEMU tree, a path
relative to some other directory involved in the installation such as $HOME,
or use a full path.
9. Clarify whether you can use DOSEMU without 'make install'. The QuickStart
document talks about make install only for system wide installation, whatever
that means.
10. After the 'make' step there's a message telling us to run 'make install'.
If 'make install' isn't necessary then remove it or at least explain under
what circumstances 'make install' is required, and
11. explain the differences between using DOSEMU *with* 'make install'
and using it *without* make install.
12. Explain how to run DOSEMU after installation. It is mentioned for the
binary distribution installation (it talks about xdosemu) but not for the
source. There's no reason to assume that the user is running X.
13. Explain that there is a script called 'default-configure' which should be run
instead of 'configure' which is what the experienced user will be expecting.
14. Explain that 'make' will run 'default-configure' and not to be concerned
by the message "You chose not to run default-configure...". (There was no
question of choosing not to run it since it wasn't mentioned except in the
section of 'QuickStart' which talks about non-standard configuration. Which
kind of begs the question "what is the standard configuration?".)
> > The build scripts seem to be very fragile, I changed the directories
> > in the compiletime-options and although everything was supposed to be
> > in my home directory the make install failed with permission problems
> > unless I was root.
>
> Shouldn't be and I just tested it. You must clean the tree and recompile
This was out-of-the-box in a new tree. Does the compiletime-options file
get modified by any of the scripts? I had the impression that it was but
I haven't been through it all again to check.
> a) problems with 'make install'
I still don't know if I'm supposed to do 'make install' or not.
> b) problems running dosemu for the first time.
The problem is that the script doesn't check the result of getting the
pathname from the user - it continues regardless even if it didn't get
one, and makes a mess which will cause problems when you next run it.
> One problem with a symlink may be solved using:
> [snip]
I think that ought to do it.
> to the question:
> Going to install your private DOSEMU files into the directory
> $HOME/dosemu
> Enter an empty string to confirm, a new path, or \"none\" (without
> the quotes) if you don't want this:"
>
> you said you entered
> /home/ged/src/dosemu/
> and then it uses
> /home/ged/src/dosemu/dosemu
> well the files are going into "/home/ged/src/dosemu/", just with one more
> directory below it. I don't see why that would be a major problem?
It's not a major problem, it's just confusing because it's not what's
asked for. You can't expect people to know that the extra directory
level won't matter. My worry was that the installation would fail.
> The reason why is that a tarfile (by default,
> /usr/local/share/dosemu/dosemu-freedos-bin.tgz)
> is untarred into this directory and the pathnames just happen to start
> with dosemu/
I'd told it not to use freedos in the compiletime-settings file but it
complained anyway.
> But is what you really mean that the install script could be clearer and
> say something like
> Going to install your private DOSEMU files into the directory
> $HOME/dosemu
> Enter an empty string to confirm, a new path, or \"none\" (without
> the quotes) if you don't want this,
> example: /home/ged/src installs your private DOSEMU files into
> /home/ged/src/dosemu.
>
> ?
That would be fine.
> > It grumbled about not having freedos
> > even though I'd set 'fdtarball none' in the compiletime-settings.
>
> Same thing here as a few lines above: "fdtarball none" only takes effect
> after you run configure again.
You mean default-configure?
> > Having said that once it did compile (2.4.19) it started and ran quite
> > a few things fine, but the attached pager (LIST.COM) crashes dosemu
> > very reliably under X on my system.
>
> I just tried it, it doesn't crash for me. Which DOS are you using in your
> DOSEMU?
MS-DOS 6.22. Today I've found that if I set the xterm for 80x25 it
seems to run OK (although I haven't tested it much) but if I start the
xterm full-screen as I usually do
(
*MiniButtons - mini-term.xpm Exec "XTerm" xterm -ls -sb -fn 7x14 -title "Color xterm"
-geometry 142x53+0+0 &
)
then I don't see anything on the dosemu screen. It instantly bombs
out into the shell that started dosemu.
I have two reasons for running DOSEMU. One is to run WordPerfect 5.0
and that seems to run just fine, which is great. I'm going to install
it in our offices now, where it will get -er- tested. They currently
run WP under DOS; I want to get the benefits of Linux without losing
all the years of experience of WP5.0. I'll keep you posted.
The other reason is to run an old C compiler suite, I sent a message a
while ago about a memory-related problem I'd had with it but it's not
so important to me right now. When I've got the secretarial stuff
running reliably I'll get on to it and let you know how it goes.
Thanks for all the effort.
73,
Ged.
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