[Gcl-devel] New Temporary GCL distribution site

[Camm Maguire]

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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> address@hidden
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> 
> 
> 

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