Re: XEmacs-Beta Digest, Vol 74, Issue 9

Ray> 17 steps seems overly complicated. steven> A lot of this depends on which operating system you are installing on. steven> My wife installed on a win7 machine next to me, and downloaded 1 file, steven> ran it, chose packages on the menu, and it installed and she was dome. steven> So for that case, 1 file, and you are through! definitely less complicated. steven> Keep in mind the install-case I am trying to document is for Skackware64 14.0 steven> and not every other case. The INSTALL file Stephen pointed out to me gave steven> general directions suitable for lots of install-cases. steven> Which steps do you think can be eliminated? The steps I commented on are the ones that I thought could be eliminated. Or at least ones that I don't do or were complicated. steven> 2. as root, copy the file xemacs-21.5.32.tar.gz from where ever steven> you downloaded it, to /usr/src with a command like this: steven> cp/home/steve/Downloads/xemacs-21.5.32.tar.gz /usr/src/ steven> verify: ls /usr/src steven> and look to see if the file you copied is there. steven> If your distribution of linux doesn't have a /usr/src directory, steven> create it with this command before copying the above file to it: steven> mkdir -p /usr/src Ray> I never build xemacs as root and instead just build it as myself. I Ray> used to build and install on a server for lots of people to use. This was Ray> never a problem, as long as I remembered to make the directories Ray> readable/searchable. steven> I think a couple of steps do need to be root, like make and make install. steven> The rest of the steps don't need to be done as root as far as I know. steven> This may be some fuzz in my directions as I had them create a directory steven> and was not clear in my own mind if it would be created as root w/root steven> permissions, so for the copying, I said to be root, though that is not steven> strictly needed, if you have the directory permissions set accordingly. No, you don't have to be root to make and make install. I've never had to do that. But I don't install in /usr/local which normally requires root (on my systems, anyway). In fact, on my Ubuntu system, I just installed everything in $HOME. steven> Can you tell me 2 things, if you remember them: steven> Which directories did you make readable/searchable? steven> How did you make them readable/searchable? Was it just using chmod? steven> And thirdly, after what step did you make them readable/searchable? The paths were only relevant to where I used to work. But it was an NFS share on server that was accessible by everyone at work. I just installed everything there and made everything world-readable (and searchable). Can't remember if it was group writable or not, but it probably was. We all trusted each other not to destroy other peoples stuff. steven> 6. Choosing command line options for ./configure. steven> There are many command line options you can set. Almost everyone steven> will have steven> at least some options to specify and almost nobody will be able to steven> install steven> XEmacs without specifying some options. Ray> Isn't this supposed to work without options? Granted the default Ray> installation directory is probably wrong, but xemacs should build and Ray> work. Nowadays, all I specify is --prefix, --with-mule, and Ray> --with-xft, and the latter two are only because I want mule and xft Ray> support. steven> I've tried just running ./configure with no options steven> specified 2 times, once with 21.5.29 and once with steven> an older version, maybe 21.5.24?, and both times I steven> got an installation that did not work right. I'd steven> have to do it again to report the exact problems I steven> got. I can do that if someone truly wants to know, steven> but in my experience I have not been successful in steven> just running ./configure with no options at all on a steven> slackware linux system. Could be an issue in configure not detecting everything correctly on a slackware system. steven> 9. To bootstrap the packaging system, download 2 files: Ray> I also never go hunting around for the packages and just grab the Ray> xemacs and mule sumo tarballs. If you're new to xemacs, this is much Ray> easier. steven> Another point about choosing to install the tarballs, is that assumes you want steven> every package installed. I typically don't install every package possible. steven> I never use any form of IRC and don't access email from XEmacs so don't install steven> those packages. Despite living in Germany a few years as a child, I do steven> everything in the English language and cannot read any other language, so don't steven> see the use of having mule installed. Not promoting English over any other steven> language, just saying it does no good for *me* to have it installed. So I go non-mule. steven> Make a case that mule is better for me to have, and I will probably install it. I just think it's cool to see things as they're written by people who are not illiterate like me. :-) But I do use that capability once in a while to test out unicode support of a common lisp implementation that I use. steven> I can modify the instructions to show how to use the mule or non-mule sumo steven> tarballs, then people could choose to do it that way if they want to. steven> Ray, can you give me exact directions to install the sumo tarballs? steven> exact commands and paths you used? steven> where are sumo-tarballs located? I'm pretty sure the directions are on the site. It's been a while, but grab the tarballs from the same place as the invididual packages, and cd to $prefix/share/xemacs and untar them. You should end up with two directories: mule-packages and xemacs-packages. Ray _______________________________________________ XEmacs-Beta mailing list XEmacs-Beta(a)xemacs.org http://lists.xemacs.org/mailman/listinfo/xemacs-beta