Re: needed-software suggestion

[pauljohn]

Scott's point about the libraries and the ambiguity about them in the
Swarm material is well taken, IMHO.

I've been studying these for the FAQ and instructions for installing 
Swarm on  Linux and so I'm familiar with the package issues.  So, 
off the top of my head, here is the deal:

libFFI is now required (as of Swarm 1-1).  I used version 1.17. Isn't that
the only one there?

Some edition of TCL/TK is required.  If you already have tcl/tk 7.5/4.1, 
I'm sure you can install BLT 2.1, possibly BLT2.3, but I'm not sure.
  More likely, you have a system with tcl/tk 7.6/4.2, in which case for
sure you want BLT2.3, or you have a system with tcl/tk8.0.  Such a
new Linux system as REdhat 5 will have that tcl/tk.  In that case,
you are faced with a choice.  Either upgrade tcl/tk to version 8.0p2,
and then install BLT8.0-unofficial (that's my personal favorite approach),
or you can install older versions of tcl/tk somewhere in your system and
get the corresponding BLT.  The instructions for that kind of install are
referred to in the SwarmFaq.

  Swarm-1.1 requires the new tclobjc library, which is 1.3.  I imagine the
older ones are left available for people who need to install older Swarm
editions in order to run legacy apps.  For example, when I wanted to play
Gecko, I learned that until recently there had been no updating of it
since the .9 swarm, and I considered a "retro-Swarm" install and I would
have needed all those old files.

  As I recall, most of the other required bits in the swarm directory are
things you probably already have in a Linux distribution, such as versions
of gcc, gdb, and xpm libraries.  

  Of course, I'm just a Linux person, and I have no personal knowledge of
the difficulty faced by people who have SGI, SUN, or who knows what. 

Paul Johnson
"I'm not a programmer, I just play one on tv"


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