Re: [Gcl-devel] gcl versions

[Matt Kaufmann]

Thanks, Camm.  Replies are interspersed below.

-- Matt
   Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden
   From: Camm Maguire <address@hidden>
   Date: 12 Sep 2003 17:33:55 -0400
   User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2
   Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

   Hi Matt!

   Matt Kaufmann <address@hidden> writes:

   > Hi, Camm --
   > 
   > I just heard from an ACL2 user who was unaware that GCL's known problems 
with
   > Sun/Solaris have been fixed.  (At least, I have the impression that GCL now
   > runs on Solaris from this week's email with the UT El Paso guys.)
   > 

   I still don't know what the original difficulty was, but I will write
   them to find out.  Of course I'd like the build to be as transparent
   as possible.  Am a bit behind on my email, as I've been pushing
   through a few changes.

And I appreciate all that work!  Thanks!!

   > I think it would be useful to have a page making it clear how to get the 
latest
   > version of GCL, and what known killer bugs it might have (like the 
recursive
   > fixnum GC problem, but not smaller things).  For starters I'd be happy to
   > create such a page, linked to by way of the ACL2 home page, if I knew what 
to
   > put into it.  I'm imagining something like the following, but I don't know 
if
   > what I say is accurate or appropriate; it's still confusing to me which of 
the
   > three approaches a new user (or I, for that matter) should take.  Any
   > suggestions?
   > 

   This of course would be a good idea, and the project homepage is a
   likely venue.  How far back in terms of gcl versions should we
   document?

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.

             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'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.

   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.

   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.

   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