Re: Stable installation

[Mats Bengtsson]

> > I renewed my subscription on the mailing lists for lilypond ("help" &
> > "discuss").  My first attempt was in 1999 (?) but an update of the 
> > installation
> > of lilypond did damage the feta-fonts. 
> > My English was too bad, so I could not ask for help.
> > Since 1999 I studied a bit English and Python.
> > 
> > Now I installed the stable version 1.2.17 (4.3.2001) and downloaded, I
> > suppose, the newest doc (the ps-zipped file).

Lilypond has changed significantly from 1.2.17 to the current version.
If you want to stick with 1.2.17, please consult the manual at
http://www.gnu.org/software/lilypond/

> > The actual version (1.3.--) has much more features, (e.g. embedded
> > PostScript : handy for writing the music of XXth century).  But I fear
> > that my "stable" version will be damaged if I try to update.  How to
> > install two completely separate versions ? Or update without the
> > same problems I encountered in 1999 ?

The trick is to remove all generated font files, see the FAQ on
messed up symbols at http://appel.lilypond.org/wiki/?PostProcessing
You don't risk to loose anything if you remove these files since
they are automatically generated on demand.

If you have several versions on your system, you still have to 
remove the generated font files when you change version. (It can
be solved better but that probably involves more work than this
solution). Also, the syntax and semantics of the input files is
slightly different for different Lilypond versions, so once you 
have upgraded, you don't want to go back again to an earlier
version.

A new "stable" Lilypond version, 1.4 will be available fairly
soon, but I recommend that you upgrade to the latest development 
version. It will not differ much from 1.4.

> > I think that some PATHes are wrong : the feta-fonts and some
> > config-files (lilyponddefs ...) must be in the working
> > directory (I use a SuSE 6.1 distrib).

If you install from an RPM, it will add a file lilypond-profile.sh
in /etc/profile.d/ which automatically will set the necessary
environment variables the next time you login. If you build
from source, you may have to copy this file manually from
buildscripts/out/. See also the instructions in INSTALL.txt.

> > My English is always poor, ... 

No too bad!

     /Mats