Well, I'm embarrased. As the person guilty of contributing the
initial packaging code, I found it rather difficult to actually use
the stuff.
First, I think the INSTALL file is too complicated. Let's cover the
simple (and typical) cases first and then bury the user with details
later. It needs to be more "cookbook" instead of "textbook" (example
below). Maybe it could get organized as some web pages that can
narrow the configuration down to what the user has selected.
Next, it is really difficult to figure out what lisp files need to be
downloaded and where they go. Yes, SUMO is the way to go for 21.0 but
that needs to be clearer in the installation files.
The install step didn't create the packages directory -- which would
then give me errors during installation of packages.
For whatever reason, using the menus to select a bunch of packages
Options ==> Customize ==> Emacs ==> Packages
Even after selecting them, then
Options ==> Update Packages
didn't do anything.
The package descriptive text needs to be longer. What are "oa", "os",
"wp" (yes, _I_ know). Why would I want to get "Miscellaneous support
for editing text files"? If I don't download the "Time Package" does
that mean XEmacs won't display the time and date on the modeline?
Following is an example of what I mean by simplified INSTALL
instructions.
1. Download the distribution (typically from
ftp.xemacs.org:/pub/xemacs/beta/xemacs-21.0)
xemacs-21.0-b54.tar.gz
xemacs-21.0-b54-elc.tar.gz
xemacs-21.0-b54-info.tar.gz
2. Download some important lisp files:
xemacs-sumo-19980811-nomule.tar.gz
[or from packages/binary-files]
xemacs-base-1.23-pkg.tar.gz
efs-1.08-pkg.tar.gz
mail-lib-1.16-pkg.tar.gz
3. Extract the sources:
gzip -dc xemacs-21.0-b54.tar.gz | tar xf -
gzip -dc xemacs-21.0-b54-elc.tar.gz | tar xf -
gzip -dc xemacs-21.0-b54-info.tar.gz | tar xf -
4. Configure and build (Note: read further for options; this covers
90% of systems):
cd xemacs-21.0-b54
./configure
make
5. Test
src/xemacs
6. Install basic xemacs (this and the following steps may require root
access):
make install
7. Install basic packages (may need root access):
cd <prefix>/lib/xemacs-21.0
mkdir packages
cd packages
gzip -dc <download>/xemacs-base-1.23-pgk.tar.gz
gzip -dc <download>/efs-1.08-pkg.tar.gz
gzip -dc <download>/mail-lib-1.16-pkg.tar.gz
8. Select more packages (may need root access):
xemacs
Options ==> Customize ==> Emacs ==> Packages ==> Packages...
9. Install packages (may need root access):
Options ==> Customize ==> Update Packages
--pete