GNU Pascal preconfigured

Sat, 5 Jul 1997 16:20:07 +0200 (MET DST)

Hi, everybody!

(*$ifdef Andreas Eckleder *)
  
  Hallo, Andreas!

  Meine persoenliche Antwort an Dich kam dreimal zurueck mit dem
  Vermerk "unbekannter Host". Da die Angelegenheit ohnehin alle
  GPCies betrifft, antworte ich jetzt ueber die Liste.

  Ich hoffe, Du hast nichts dagegen, dass ich Teile deiner persoenlichen
  e-mail hier uebersetze und veroeffentliche ... #-)

(*$endif *)

Andreas Eckleder wrote to me (in German; translation by myself):
> What about creating a GNU Pascal distribution with an installation
> tool which makes it extremely easy to install, and simultaeously
> does some other configuration tasks (environment variables, RHIDE
> configuration)?
> [...]

I would vote for it!  Once upon a time I had started myself to write
such an installation tool, but then there were several urgent GPC
errors which were much more interesting ... ;-)

For DOS or for Linux?  (Or for SGI?;-)

Be welcome to distribute this package on agnes and kampi, together
with the rest of GNU Pascal!

However we must take care not to spoil the structure of the other parts
of the GPC distribution.  We do not want to prefer DOS or Linux users to
any other ones.

The current structure is:


    / = ftp://agnes.dida.physik.uni-essen.de/gnu-pascal/
        or ftp://kampi.hut.fi/jtv/gnu-pascal/

    /         GPC source, global `README', etc.

    /binary/  GNU-style GPC binary distribution, i.e.
              gpc-2.0.i586-linux.tar.gz, gpc-2.0.i386-djgppv201.zip, ...

    /djgpp/   DJGPP-style GPC distribution (gpc20s.zip, gpc20b.zip)

    /emx/     EMX-style GPC distribution (gpcsrc.zip, gpcdev.zip)

    /beta/    beta versions

    /alpha/   alpha versions

    /old/     museum

    /contrib/ useful independent contributions, e.g. `BPCompat'

    /misc/    other stuff, e.g. the GPC WWW home page.


The package (How to call it?  What about "Easy GPC?" I am taking this
as a working title ... :-) must not occupy the main directory. OTOH,
we must not hide it, of course.

What about another subdirectory `/easy/' from the same type as `/djgpp/'
containing all needed `.zip' files plus the installation program and
`README'?  Having this, a user only needs to download the contents of
*one* directory.

    /easy/    complete GPC distribution for DOS (DJGPP) with a
              user-friendly, interactive installation program

And the global `README' would get a prominent pointer to this
directory:


    The easy way to install GNU Pascal
    ==================================

    If you are running DOS, and you want to install a complete package
    via a user-friendly, interactive installation tool, please go to
    the `easy' subdirectory, download all files, store them in one
    directory on your hard disk, and type `install'.


If I remember right, The African Chief (Hi!:) had planned to write
something similar for Windows.  Then we could create more directories
of this type, e.g. `/easy-dos/' and `/easy-w32/', and change the text
in `README' accordingly.

BTW, the installation program "must" contain a text browser which presents
the GNU license in full length!  I have the impression that many users
consider a program the more interesting, the more penetrant you point
them to the license terms and conditions.  If you tell them "you can just
proceed and use it", people become sceptical.

sqr ( BTW ), if all components included are under the GNU GPL, it is
perfectly legal to burn the whole stuff on a CD (or a stack of floppies)
and to sell that CD.  You are invited to do that, too.

Tschuess,

    Peter

 Dipl.-Phys. Peter Gerwinski, Essen, Germany, free physicist and programmer
peter.gerwinski@uni-essen.de - http://home.pages.de/~peter.gerwinski/ [970201]
 maintainer GNU Pascal [970624] - http://home.pages.de/~gnu-pascal/ [970125]

Peter Gerwinski (peter@agnes.dida.physik.uni-essen.de)