[Gcl-devel] Re: New Temporary GCL distribution site

[Matt Kaufmann]

Camm --

I tried downloading 2.6.1-9 three times from
http://people.debian.org/~camm/gcl/stable-binary/ and each try resulted in an
incomplete download.  Strange.... anyhow, the page looks like a great start.  I
may have more comments later.

-- Matt
   Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden,
      Aurelien Chanudet <address@hidden>,
      "Mike Thomas" <address@hidden>,
      Mark Murray <address@hidden>
   From: Camm Maguire <address@hidden>
   Date: 17 Sep 2003 14:37:27 -0400
   User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2
   Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

   Greetings!

   Matt Kaufmann <address@hidden> writes:

   > I don't have an opinion.  I'm really just looking for a simple answer to 
the
   > question of where a new GCL user should go for a GCL download.

   If you get a chance, please check out

   http://people.debian.org/~camm/gcl.  

   This is very much under construction, but the basic mirroring of the
   automatically built binaries appears to be working.  When the gclcvs
   Debian package I've uploaded gets accepted, there will automatically
   appear CVS snapshot versions of these links as well. 

   We need to add our new BSD, Mac OSX, and windows builds too.  Mike has
   already setup a facility for this, but it would be very helpful if the
   Mac and BSD people could either provide a machine running a little
   autobuilding script (I can provide a sample) building the latest
   source and sticking the builds somewhere accessible to this mirror, or
   provide a link to a binary built somewhere else.  The idea is to
   minimize human intervention in getting this put together.

   If we need or want rpm's, I can provide them as before using 'alien'.

   I'm not much of a web guy, so suggestions for the clearly needed
   improvements are welcome. 

   > 
   >              The recursive Windows issue was really old.  (BTW, has the
   >    user who reported this tried a new build with success?)
   > 
   > I don't recall the issue -- if you have the email I don't mind checking 
with
   > the person.
   > 

   I think this is the issue referred to in the separate post you've just
   made? 

   >    I'm unaware of any killer bugs at present.  The last one I knew of was
   >    the GC bug you brought to my attention.  Are there others?
   > 
   > I'm not aware of any either.  Is there a gcl users mailing list?  If so, 
that
   > would be good information for new users as well.
   > 

   I can create one if there is interest.  I have limited time myself for
   another list, but others might.

   >    When ftp.gnu.org gets back up, we plan to have official source tarball
   >    releases under gnu/gcl, stable binary builds of these under
   >    gnu/gcl/stable-binary, and latest cvs snapshot binary builds under
   >    gnu/gcl/cvs.  Unfortunately, ftp.gnu.org is apparently down for some
   >    considerable time.  I've written to the admins several times with no
   >    human response. 
   > 
   >    In the meantime, we have stable (2.6.1) and unstable (2.7.0) cvs
   >    branches, and binary and source tarballs via debian.org.  Adding -r
   >    Version_2_6_1 pulls the former; the latter is pulled by default.
   >    Stable .deb packages are called gcl_...., and unstable (soon to be
   >    released) as gclcvs.....
   > 
   > But which do you recommend for brand new users, who might know nothing 
about
   > gcl or even Lisp and might know very little about CVS?  I'm looking for 
very
   > explicit instructions, of the sort I proposed in my previous email.
   > 

   I still need to add CVS instructions to these new pages, and to
   (finally) link this site to the main GCL page.  But in general,
   newbies should stay away from CVS, I'd think.  Hopefully they won't
   even have to compile.  Just use prebuilt binaries and submit good bug
   reports :-).

   So I'm thinking if we can get good binary coverage, I'd suggest the
   folllowing advice for newbies: goto the site, download and install the
   appropriate binary.  Unpacking instructions still need to be added as
   well.


   >    Anyway, suggestions on easing distribution and information transfer
   >    are always appreciated.  I can stick the above paragraph on the
   >    homepage if desired.  But more than likely this setup requires some
   >    user-friendliness feedback :-).
   > 
   > If you think ftp://ftp.gnu.org may be back up soon, might it make sense to 
wait
   > a few days and then put up some version of the explicit instructions I
   > proposed?  Can you suggest any specific revisions?  I'm still kind of 
confused
   > about the relation between the various methods of fetching GCL and which is
   > recommended.
   > 

   I thought ftp.gnu.org would be back soon, but I'm getting no response
   whatsoever.  My recommendations to gcl users are in order of
   advisability:

   1) apt-get -q install gcl gcl-doc if running Debian
   2) Download and install the prebuilt binaries otherwise 
   3) Download the latest (stable) source tarball and build yourself otherwise
   4) Download the latest (stable) cvs branch and build yourself
   otherwise.  Unfortunately, unless you follow the mailing lists, I
   don't know how a user would know what the current stable tag is.  If
   one happens to know, then the cvs command looks like

   cvs -d:pserver:address@hidden:/cvsroot/gcl co -r
   Version_2_6_1 gcl


   If one wants a cvs snapshot, each of these 4 are as follows:

   1) apt-get -q install gclcvs gclcvs-doc if running Debian
   2) Download and install the prebuilt cvs binaries otherwise
   3) Download the latest (cvs snapshot) source tarball and build yourself 
otherwise
   4) Download the latest (head) cvs branch and build yourself
   otherwise.  This will always look as follows:  

   cvs -d:pserver:address@hidden:/cvsroot/gcl co gcl

   Anyway, as you can tell I'm trying to rush this out, and really would
   appreciate some usability help here along the lines of Matt's
   suggestions.  Unfortunately, references to ftp.gnu.org, and even the
   main web site (until we install a link to the new temporary
   distribution site) are currently of little use.  And cvs should (IMHO)
   only be mentioned as a last resort.

   Take care,


   >    Take care,
   > 
   > 
   >    > 
===============================================================================
   >    > 
   >    > Here are instructions for obtaining GCL (try these in the order 
shown):
   >    > 
   >    > o Latest release and packages:
   >    > 
   >    >   http://www.gnu.org/software/gcl/gcl.html
   >    > 
   >    > o The very latest GCL, assuming you have CVS installed on your system 
(see
   >    >   http://savannah.gnu.org/cvs/?group=gcl if you want more information 
on this):
   >    > 
   >    >     cvs -d:pserver:address@hidden:/cvsroot/gcl login
   >    >     cvs -d:pserver:address@hidden:/cvsroot/gcl checkout gcl
   >    > 
   >    > o Recent CVS versions:
   >    > 
   >    >   ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcl/cvs/
   >    > 
   >    > 
===============================================================================
   >    > 
   >    > By the way, several links under the menu at
   >    > http://www.gnu.org/software/gcl/gcl.html are broken, perhaps because
   >    > ftp://ftp.gnu.org is down; any idea when that will be fixed?
   >    > 
   >    > Thanks much --
   >    > -- Matt
   >    > 
   >    > 
   >    > _______________________________________________
   >    > Gcl-devel mailing list
   >    > address@hidden
   >    > http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gcl-devel
   >    > 
   >    > 
   >    > 
   > 
   >    -- 
   >    Camm Maguire                                            address@hidden
   >    
==========================================================================
   >    "The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."  --  
Baha'u'llah
   > 
   > 
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   > 
   > 
   > 

   -- 
   Camm Maguire                                         address@hidden
   ==========================================================================
   "The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."  --  Baha'u'llah