* XEmacs 21.4.3 "Academic Rigor" is released.
"Academic Rigor" is the fourth in the OXYMORON series.
Relative to XEmacs 21.4.2 "Developer-Friendly Unix APIs", it contains
fixes to two build bugs on Windows platforms and one for TTY-only, and
a few typo fixes in the documentation. More detailed information
about the changes is presented below.
The first release in this series, Xemacs 21.4.0 "Solid Vapor",
contained a large number of improvements and extensions to the current
stable version, XEmacs 21.1.14. For more information about the
OXYMORON series, see etc/NEWS, the initial release announcement
http://www.xemacs.org/Releases/21.4.0.html
and the release planning page,
http://www.xemacs.org/Releases/Public-21.2/.
For general information about XEmacs, the developers, and the user
community, see our home page,
http://www.xemacs.org/.
* XEmacs 21.4.3 is "gamma" software.
Besides the usual "no warranty" disclaimer (see etc/WARRANTY, sections
10 and 11), we are now experimenting with a level of stability
intermediate between "beta" and "stable", dubbed "gamma".
At this
point all the developers and most of our beta testers trust the 21.4
code base with all their editing needs. However, for several reasons,
for users who absolutely must minimize risk, we continue to recommend
the 21.1 series.
Nevertheless, almost all users will get very high reliability from
XEmacs 21.4, and in return, access to many new features and improved
functionality. No new destabilizing code will be added; each release
in the 21.4 series should be strictly more stable and bug-free than
the preceding one. We also recommend the 21.4 series to distribution
packagers (such as Linux distributions and the open source BSD "ports"
or "packages" maintainers) for their "testing" and
"development"
distributions.
* Changes included in XEmacs 21.4.3 "Academic Rigor"
There are no user-visible behavior changes.
- (All Windows) Restore include of src/events-mod.h.
- (Cygwin) Detect Windows native sound under Cygwin
- (TTY-only) Restore patch for building --with-scrollbars=no
- (small stack Unix) Can build with -DREGEX_MALLOC.
- Update package docs
- More photos
- Misc comment fixes in source
Thanks to Adrian Aichner (and several others) and Karl Hegbloom for
catching me where I missed patches. Thanks to Yoshiki Hayashi, Paul
Stodghill, and Steve Youngs for patches.
* Getting and Installing XEmacs 21.4.3
XEmacs 21.4.3 is available in source form, including pre-compiled
"core" Lisp libraries and pre-built Info files, from
ftp.xemacs.org
and mirrors (
http://www.xemacs.org/Download/index.html#mirror_index).
The file INSTALL in the top directory of the sources explains how to
build XEmacs on Unix. The equivalent for Windows is nt/README. Note
that building XEmacs 21.4 on Windows ME and other 9x variants is not
currently supported. If you want to help fix the problems, please
join the xemacs-nt mailing list.
See
http://www.xemacs.org/Download/
for general information about downloading XEmacs. For those wedded to
their old command-line FTP client, the following URLs may be useful:
ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/xemacs-21.4/xemacs-21.4.3.tar.gz
or build the Lisp and Info from source, saving download time, with
ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/xemacs-21.4/xemacs-21.4.3-src.tar.gz
In either case, you need the "packaged Lisp" for more than the most
basic functionality. You may use packages previously installed for
use with XEmacs 21.1 or later without change. For new installations,
the "SUMO" distribution of (almost) all packaged Lisp is available as
ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/packages/xemacs-sumo.tar.gz
ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/packages/xemacs-mule-sumo.tar.gz
The latter should be installed only if you are building XEmacs with
the MULE multilingual support; it contains Lisp files that cannot be
correctly loaded by a unibyte XEmacs. See README.packages.
XEmacs 21.4.3 is also available via anonymous CVS. To get the latest
in the 21.4 series, check out (or update) with the "release-21-4" tag.
This should be sufficient for almost all users; throughout this series
patches will be carefully screened to ensure that every release is
more stable than the last. If for some reason you specifically want
this release, use the "r21-4-3" tag.
See
http://cvs.xemacs.org/ for general instructions on getting XEmacs
via anonymous CVS.
Binary kits are not planned at this time, except for selected releases
for the MS Windows platform. Setups based on the Cygwin
"netinstaller", Wise installer, and Installshield are in various
degrees of readiness. The adventurous can subscribe
to the xemacs-nt mailing list to learn about prerelease tests.
The current public release for Windows is based on 21.4.0 "Solid Vapor".
http://www.xemacs.org/Download/win32/setup.exe
We are considering providing binary kits for important platforms that
lack independent distributors once 21.4 is accepted as "stable".
Volunteers should contact the Release Manager, "Stephen Turnbull"
<stephen(a)xemacs.org>, and let me know for which platforms you can
build.
* Important notices for CVS users:
The structure of the CVS repository for packaged Lisp is in the
process of being reorganized, thanks to Steve Youngs. This will
involve a change in the default hierarchy of workspaces. Please watch
the xemacs-beta mailing list for details.
The structure of the CVS repository for XEmacs sources has been
rationalized thanks to Michael Sperber. The development code is now
on the trunk. See earlier release announcements for details. Eg,
http://www.xemacs.org/Releases/21.4.0.content#cvs
* Thanks
... to all the developers, reviewers, and testers; to the
Electrotechnical Laboratory and
BeOpen.com for financial support; to
Tux.org and SourceForge[tm] for hosting services; and to our users.
May 17, 2001
XEmacs 21.4 Release Manager
Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen(a)xemacs.org>
--
University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences Tel/fax: +81 (298) 53-5091
_________________ _________________ _________________ _________________
What are those straight lines for? "XEmacs rules."