[M3devel] Getting ready for new users (Re: HEADS UP: Release engineering)

[hendrik at topoi.pooq.com]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 01:43:34PM +0200, Olaf Wagner wrote:
> Quoting hendrik at topoi.pooq.com:
> 
> >Is it time for me to make another try at installing cm3 from scratch?
> >In particular, do you think most of the problems I reported with
> >documentation and archives, etc., have been solved?  I really want to
> >get m3 working on this laptop, but I also want to provide the most
> >useful problem reports.
> >
> >I'm definitely trying to act like a naive user in these installation
> >attempts (which means I'm trying to act stupider than I am).
> 
> I've now put some initial release engineering documentation onto
> birch, available at
> 
>   http://www.opencm3.net/releng

Well, I started with that page, assuming that it will be the one Google 
finds when the release is finally out.  I'm continuing to act like a 
naive user (but I'm probably not naive enough to give the instructions a 
real test).

It seems to have installed, but I'm not sure, because the installer 
ended with an error message.  Here are the gory details.

Started from http://www.opencm3.net/releng/

I found the description quite clear.  It's still not clear just what 
packages are in cm3-core and not in cm3-min or why I would want them, 
but it was clear I wanted to start with cm3-core.  For example, is there 
a UI library in cm3-core?

(Oh why is it so hard to cut and paste from the web page to this emacs 
buffer on my laptop?)

cm3-bin-core-LINUXLIBC6-d5.8.1-RC1.tgz dowwnloaded without a problem.  A 
beginner with Linux might have difficulty knowing whether to use the 
.lzma version.

Ah! I clicked on the "standard, recommended" link (I hadn't realised it 
was a link) and found the list of what packages are in the .tgz file.   
One layout comment -- it consists of a series of sections, each starting 
with a title and ending with a browse-sources link.  Each title needs to 
look more prominent than the text or the link.  At the moment, the link 
is what stands out.  More blank lines between the entries then within 
them would make them group better.

Next: do  tar -xzvf cm3-bin-core-TARGET-VERSION.tgz

Again, that worked.  I do find myseelf wondering it that would be the 
correct command line if I were uzinng Winzip on Windows, though.  
(that's wha tthe insstruction seems to say)

Next I run ./cminstall /usr/local/cm3

It asks mme whether /home.hendrik/cm3 is to be the root directory for 
cm3.  The naive user doesn't know what that means.  Nor do I, for that 
matter.  I'm guessing that it's where to unpack and work during 
installation, but that it won't be needed later.  That I can even 
deleete the entire /home/hendrik/cm3 directory tree after installation.  
That in fact when I instll packages later I can download them to, say, 
/anywhere and install them from /anywhere and they'll still get 
installed in the proper place.  But I don't know.  For now, I'll just 
accept the defaults.

Next problem:

> Installing CM3 in: /usr/local/cm3
> This may take a few minutes...
> 
> Unexpected problem: cannot list current directory: errno=2
> 
> Please feel free to contact m3-support at elego.de to troubleshoot this 
problem.

Current directory?  That's an uninformative message.  Possibly it refers 
to /usr/local/cm3?  Which really doesn't exit yet?  Should your 
instructions say to create it and make sure it has the right write 
permissions?

Noooo.  that's not the reason. /usr/local/cm3 has been created.  And 
populated with lots of subdirectories.  /usr/local/cm3/bin contains a 
few executables and lots of other files.  It turns out I did have 
permission to write on /usr/local.  I don't know what directory it's 
referring to.

What next?

-- hendrik