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

[hendrik at topoi.pooq.com]

On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 08:43:11PM +0000, Jay wrote:
> 
> I just ran ./make-dist.sh.
> I admit I didn't take the time to test out the archives.
> lzma I made just via
>   gunzip foo.tgz
>   lzma foo.tar

No need to apologise.  These archives seem to have worked better than 
the last ones I tried.

I'm specifically trying to help you guys make it work by acting like a 
naive user and reporting what goes wrong or might confuse a naive user.  
The show-stopper for the naive user in this report was the error message 
that, as far as I can tell, occurs at the end of installation.

If my goal was just to get cm3 working, I'd have accomplished it 
already, as an experienced user.  IN fact, I'm still going to set my 
$PATH properly to find out if I already have a working cm3 from this 
installation.  The last one I tried a few seeks ago (a version of min) 
was usable long before I finished the whole installation process.  After 
juat unzipping the archives and cooking up some suitable $PATH entries, 
I was compiling.  But from the instructions I was following, it looked 
like I had a long way to go yet.
 
Half the problems I'm coming up with are probably infelicities if 
documentation.  Like the 'if' in that sentence that should have been 
'of'.

> 
> 
> For Interix I cut down the list of collections.
> 
> 
> It is common for multiple compression formats to be used.
> lzma often shrinks the files by half, though, oddly, sometimes not at all.
> lzma admittedly has been superceded xz.
> 
>  
> 
> I know it is difficult and I'm not helpful here, but we should keep in mind the ideals:
> 
>   apt-get install foo 

We still have to get to this point.  Only I fink it's cm3 we want, not 
foo.

> 
>   download foo.exe and run it, hit next next next finish 
> 
>   download foo.tar.gz, tar xf foo.tar.gz, cd foo, read INSTALL, ./configure, ./make, su, ./make install
> 
>  
> 
> to measure ourselves by.
> 
>  
> 
> There's no need for Winzip if we use .zip files, explorer handles them.

That's useful.  Unless you're paranoid enough to never let your WIndows 
machine come near a network.  It's an effective way to avoid viruses.

> 
> It is also easy to make self extracting .zip files.
> 
>  And untrusting users can just run unzip on them or rename them to .zip and open with Explorer, it's quite nice, except that for running, they don't run on many systems.
> 
> 
>  - Jay
> 
>  
> > Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:52:06 +0200
> > From: wagner at elegosoft.com
> > To: m3devel at elegosoft.com
> > Subject: Re: [M3devel] Getting ready for new users (Re: HEADS UP: Release engineering)
> > 
> > Quoting 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.
> > 
> > LINUXLIBC6 along with all lmza archives were created by Jay;
> > I'd rather have limited the available formats. Of course this needs
> > to be documented if we provide .lzma files.
> > 
> > > 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)
> > 
> > No, Winzip of course is a GUI application where you are supposed to
> > point and click with the mouse...
> > 
> > > 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
> > 
> > This is strange. cminstall shouldn't ask any questions by default.
> > But as mentioned before, I only built the archives for FreeBSD4 and
> > AMD64_LINUX (and later PPC_DARWIN). Jay, what exactly did you package
> > there? Or am I misunderstanding something here?
> > 
> > > 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
> > 
> > I've never seen that. Can you provide the complete installation log?
> > We may also need a system call trace to track this down...
> > 
> > >> 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.
> > 
> > Strange. I tried an installation on FreeBSD which succeeded without
> > any problems.
> > 
> > > What next?
> > 
> > Let's have a look at Install.log and hear what Jay has to say about
> > LINUXLIBC6.
> > 
> > Thanks for the feedback,
> > 
> > Olaf
> > -- 
> > Olaf Wagner -- elego Software Solutions GmbH
> > Gustav-Meyer-Allee 25 / Gebäude 12, 13355 Berlin, Germany
> > phone: +49 30 23 45 86 96 mobile: +49 177 2345 869 fax: +49 30 23 45 86 95
> > http://www.elegosoft.com | Geschäftsführer: Olaf Wagner | Sitz: Berlin
> > Handelregister: Amtsgericht Charlottenburg HRB 77719 | USt-IdNr: DE163214194
> >