Re: Unpacking source files, & cet.

From: Andy Valencia <vandys_at_nospam.org>
Date: Wed May 20 1998 - 22:39:21 PDT

[magpie@techline.com writes:]

>A few, simple, newbie questions: in what directory should I unpack gcc,
>make & other source distributions such that they are in the right place
>relative to everything else?

I tried to make everything so it would unpack from /vsta. Generally you can
just do "cd /vsta ; tar -zxvf <path>/<file>.tz".

>Are there established conventions for VSTa's directory tree (as in unix)?

Yes, most of which are hopefully apparent in the current tree.

>Lastly, what needs to be done to set up gcc? A mail-archive message from
>9feb98 says:
>"...gcc should already be configured, and was and is built under VSTa. It
>should continue to build, delta any accidental damage I've done to it."
>..and I see a file 'gcc' (52k) in /vsta/bin that suggests that the compiler
>may just run as installed, provided it is installed in the right place. Is
>this so, or does it need to be 'built'? I am (clearly) not a programmer,
>but I can turn cranks...

When you install VSTa you get a fully usable gcc binary. I'd suggest
avoiding rebuilding all of that unless you want to do compiler work.

>There are many other files in /vsta/bin (make, gmake, gzip, yacc, etc.)
>that seem to relate to the other software distributions available from the
>VSTa website. How do I make use of these files? Someone has already
>invested a lot of work here; I would like to take advantage of that, with
>gratitude.

Your default shell should have /vsta/bin in its path. Just enter the
command the same as ever.

>And muchas thanks for bearing with these "entry level" questions.

It's a pretty unexceptional UN*X-ish shell environment. You should refer to
the documentation in /vsta/readme and /vsta/doc/roadmap.txt and
/vsta/doc/faq. If you follow those instructions, you should end up with an
installation which'll boot, let you log in (as shipped, /vsta/etc/passwd has
an account for "vandys" with no password) and edit, compile, ls, and so
forth. It's a plain old Bourne shell, except that it has emacs-style
command line editing (actually, it doesn't, but when you're in canonical
input for a TTY, you get it for free).

                                                        Andy
Received on Wed May 20 18:55:28 1998

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