Requests for extensions

[Juanito]

I'm not totally sure I see the difference between using app-browser to get extensions and using package mangement (apt-get, yum) in a full distro?

dsl had some libs that were the same as debian woody, some libs that were more recent than debian woody and (perhaps) some libs that were the same as debian serge. This meant that apt-get/dpkg would work cleanly sometimes, but more often than not, things had to be forced because of the lib mis-match with unpredictable results.

I believe I'm correct in saying that the initial compile environment in dsl was made from debian packages and, as such, sometimes gave strange errors - this was the initial driver for the compile-3.3.5 extension, which was built on dsl using the same libs as dsl and is the reasoning behind the compiletc extension.

I may be wrong, but I don't think apt-get or similar makes sense with tc (and it would certainly be a lot of work) - there is however a lot of learning/satisfaction to be gained in compiling your own extension and making it available to others 

[tobiaus]

I'm not totally sure I see the difference between using app-browser to get extensions and using package mangement (apt-get, yum) in a full distro?

just the sheer breadth of the repository:

sudo apt-get install mped works, sudo /usr/bin/tce-fetch.sh mped tce doesn't. when you make a request for something already available in apt as a tce, you are at the mercy of your own compile environment and the generosity of wonderful contributors like yourself. i am not naive about the practicality of adding apt to tc. i'm sure it's entirely impractical. a nice thought, but an idle one. i'd love for you to disagree.

there is however a lot of learning/satisfaction to be gained in compiling your own extension and making it available to others 

no, i disagree. i think compiling is one of the least straightforward, most unpleasant linux tasks there is, next to installing a printer or configuring wireless. i always avoided it, up until tc gained so much trust i tried with a few simple program sources. not only did it not work, i have no idea why and there seems to be no idiot's guide anywhere.

you're entitled to your opinion and it's a good thing for all of us it's different, but it's not for the average user that thinks tc is generally friendly enough.

i did compile one package in tc today: zile, based on roberts's book. first compile ever (yay!) then i tried mp from triptico.com. it said it couldn't find ncursesw, oh well. but it's not fun at all. using tc is. apt-get spoils you. everything is already ready already. if compiling was just tedious, that's one thing. it's actually somewhat painful.

[Juanito]

it said it couldn't find ncursesw

if you look in the linux-from-scratch ncurses section, it explains how to get around that 

[latte]

I'm not totally sure I see the difference between using app-browser to get extensions and using package mangement (apt-get, yum) in a full distro?

just the sheer breadth of the repository:

sudo apt-get install mped works, sudo /usr/bin/tce-fetch.sh mped tce doesn't. when you make a request for something already available in apt as a tce, you are at the mercy of your own compile environment and the generosity of wonderful contributors like yourself. i am not naive about the practicality of adding apt to tc. i'm sure it's entirely impractical. a nice thought, but an idle one. i'd love for you to disagree.

there is however a lot of learning/satisfaction to be gained in compiling your own extension and making it available to others 

no, i disagree. i think compiling is one of the least straightforward, most unpleasant linux tasks there is, next to installing a printer or configuring wireless. i always avoided it, up until tc gained so much trust i tried with a few simple program sources. not only did it not work, i have no idea why and there seems to be no idiot's guide anywhere.

you're entitled to your opinion and it's a good thing for all of us it's different, but it's not for the average user that thinks tc is generally friendly enough.

i did compile one package in tc today: zile, based on roberts's book. first compile ever (yay!) then i tried mp from triptico.com. it said it couldn't find ncursesw, oh well. but it's not fun at all. using tc is. apt-get spoils you. everything is already ready already. if compiling was just tedious, that's one thing. it's actually somewhat painful.

 Hi again all....    
 Thanks for your comments!  Argh, I have to admit that I'd forgotten that tc ran in RAM, so that would indeed be a restriction (as tobiaus mentioned). 
 Yes, my main reason for thinking of an apt extension was just the sheer size of the Ubuntu (and Debian) repos, as mentioned above.   
 Going off-topic for a moment.... One thing I'd love to see in a small distro is a port of OpenBSD's pf firewall to Linux, but *that* would take a humungous amount of work, I imagine.
 As I understand it, the underlying security infrastructure is quite different in OpenBSD and Linux.   
 I believe pf is superior to the existing Linux firewalls, but due to the difficulty of porting it to Linux, I guess we won't be seeing it on Linux any time soon.   

[curaga]

A big downside in apt would be that to install anything it would first install ALL ubuntu/debian base libs. Thus downloading in practise several hundred MB to your ram. In the process also borking most if not all TC libs, which could stop many apps from working.

If looking for a light ubuntu, do the server install, and only apt-get stuff that you use.

[robc]

One feature that I would like to see in TC is a VNC extension. I actually tried creating one yesterday but ran into some problems. TightVNC would be good since it includes its own X tree to build the Xvnc server but I imagine that it would be quite difficult to port to the new pciaccess version of Xorg that we use. So I tried RealVNC instead...I got through the build of the wrapper files but when it came to building Xvnc it requires you to build the complete X tree (maybe I should of read the whole instructions first), something I'd rather not do but I don't know a way around it. I also assumed that you need Xorg to run the new versions of vnc...perhaps I should look into the possibility of building it across TinyX?

Are there any other options for vnc?

[curaga]

Are you looking for a VNC server or a client?

[tobiaus]

it said it couldn't find ncursesw

if you look in the linux-from-scratch ncurses section, it explains how to get around that 

are you referring to this:

Finally, make sure that old applications that look for -lcurses at build time are still buildable:

rm -vf /usr/lib/libcursesw.so
echo "INPUT(-lncursesw)" >/usr/lib/libcursesw.so
ln -sfv libncurses.so /usr/lib/libcurses.so
ln -sfv libncursesw.a /usr/lib/libcursesw.a
ln -sfv libncurses.a /usr/lib/libcurses.a

or perhaps something like --without-debug ? it saddens me to learn that ./configure varies from source to source, and is only a script that may not even include the same name (config.sh) let alone identical options. even roberts's suggestion of "use ./configure help" is not standard, as "configure" is a script native to each project, not a reusable tool. instead i used "cat config.sh | grep -i prefix" to see if it shared any options with the one for zile.

[robc]

Are you looking for a VNC server or a client?

I'm looking for a server

[Juanito]

You perhaps need both parts:

Many applications still expect the linker to be able to find non-wide-character Ncurses libraries. Trick such applications into linking with wide-character libraries by means of symlinks and linker scripts:

for lib in curses ncurses form panel menu ; do \
    rm -vf /usr/lib/lib${lib}.so ; \
    echo "INPUT(-l${lib}w)" >/usr/lib/lib${lib}.so ; \
    ln -sfv lib${lib}w.a /usr/lib/lib${lib}.a ; \
done
ln -sfv libncurses++w.a /usr/lib/libncurses++.a

Finally, make sure that old applications that look for -lcurses at build time are still buildable:

rm -vf /usr/lib/libcursesw.so
echo "INPUT(-lncursesw)" >/usr/lib/libcursesw.so
ln -sfv libncurses.so /usr/lib/libcurses.so
ln -sfv libncursesw.a /usr/lib/libcursesw.a
ln -sfv libncurses.a /usr/lib/libcurses.a

[curaga]

Dropbear should support SSH X forwarding, and that should be usable on windows too with the java Xserver & putty. Will check around though for a vnc server.

[tobiaus]

and that was supposed to be an easy one. i don't know how minefield ever got compiled, but i'm pretty sure that satanic elves were involved.

[curaga]

So, you tried too? A very filtered version of my feelings about it has been publicly posted, but that is not even near the reality. Not only does it work only at full moon, you'll need to sacrifice at least three first-borns.

[robc]

Dropbear should support SSH X forwarding, and that should be usable on windows too with the java Xserver & putty.

I would prefer to use SSH X forwarding but that is too in depth for most of the end users of the system I am building. I'm targeting to people who only know how to click on an icon in Windows.

Thank you for your response and work 

[tobiaus]

So, you tried too? A very filtered version of my feelings about it has been publicly posted, but that is not even near the reality. Not only does it work only at full moon, you'll need to sacrifice at least three first-borns.

hey, any minor misgivings i have about your minefield tce (and tcz) don't negate the fact that i look up to your ability to create it... at least until the day when i've learned all your tricks and surpass you (yeah, right...) and besides, you should be proud of it anyway. it's the only version of ff3 (i'm an ff2 guy personally) that i can stand to use. that's gotta be worth something and, it's super fast. and someday, they're going to make compiling easier. don't ask me how, i have no idea. but it's just ridiculous, the way compilling is sometimes. "configure, make, make install," my /usr/bin/as