FreeTDS Development Group

[Norman Palardy <palardyn AT mac.com>]

On Wednesday, October 17, 2001, at 10:12  PM, James Cameron wrote:

> G'day Norman,
>
> I agree with all of your points.  It is too difficult and needs to be
> packaged in binary format.  Let's work to improve the situation.

I'd really like this.

> Norman Palardy wrote:
> > configure has how many options ?
>
> It has five package specific options that I can see, the rest are
> standard options that prior users of autoconf will recognise.  ;-(

Not being a "prior user" it has options that I dont recognize. Probably 
part of the confusion for me

> http://www.freetds.org/userguide/x126.htm#AEN145 describes these
> configuration options quite thoroughly.  (Well done Brian and James).
I have to admit that the user guide is quite well hidden ;-)
Burying it in the FAQ's made it more difficult than it needs to be.
It's quite central to the distribution and use; why not make it part of 
it or at least something that points right at it from the download page 
saying "Now that you've downloaded things here's the guide for it"

> > I've seen people mention that the sources from the CVS repository 
> > should
> > be used.  That's fine, and I would, if I had some idea where this was 
> > or
> > how to get them out of CVS.
>
> This was recently posted to the mailing list.  It is also section 5.1 in
> the FAQ.  http://www.freetds.org/faq.html#51

Actually I did see that.

> If you've never used CVS before, you may find it difficult.  Install CVS
> on your system, then follow the instructions for Anonymous CVS Access on
> SourceForge.  http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=33106

CVS is preinstalled on this machine as part of the basic OS install
I will try that as I have seen others mention that the CVS sources gave 
them a version that worked where the distribution on the web site did not

> Perform a 'cvs checkout' against the freetds module.  This will create a
> directory freetds in your current directory.  Build from that
> directory.  When you want to adopt changes made to CVS later, perform a
> 'cvs update'.  This will propogate just the changes to the files, quite
> efficiently.  Then you build again.
>
> > make?
> > Even after configuring things I try and compile any of the unittests 
> > doe
> > the dblib portion and they don't make. Some libs simply don't exist 
> > that
> > these are being linked against
>
> Can you be more specific?
Depended on the options I used for configure as to which library was 
trying to be linked against that simply wasn't present

> I was able to build from the current CVS copy just then, but 'make
> check' failed on each test.  I suspect a network problem accessing the
> test database server on the internet.
Make check failed for me on all tests as well.
I know the server was available because I immediately ran my java 
programs and logged in to it.

> Perhaps you should skip the unit tests.  I never used them, and things
> always worked fine for me.

I think I will

> > make install
> > Usually I end up having to su to root before this has any hope of
> > working and that is not mentioned in any of the install guides that I
> > have seen or read that are part of the distribution at
> > http://www.freetds.org/download.html
>
> Well, yes, you are right.  We're assuming too much knowledge.  Some of
> it is in the INSTALL file in the source kit, some is in the user guide.
> I've adjusted the user guide in CVS.
>
> http://www.freetds.org/userguide/x126.htm#AEN145
>
> > Documentation ? The download includes documentation. Right
> > It includes a README that doesn't say enough about building the install
> > to make it useful.
>
> README points at INSTALL, which does seem useful.  I think it should say
> it sooner.  I've adjusted README and INSTALL now in CVS.  Hope Brian
> doesn't have a heart attack.

Fair. I'll reread them. I'm looking at this from the point of view of 
someone who simply wants a binary to download install an use.

> > The doc files are in SGML. And no mention of what I might use to read 
> > it
> > or what might be useful.
>
> An SGML reader?  On Debian GNU/Linux there are 61 packages that mention
> SGML.  The HTML format might be useful to you, and it is on the web, URL
> as above.  We don't ship the HTML with the source kit.

Sorry; but this is not Linux I'm running and I doubt I'm going to go try 
and grab an SGML reader and recompile that so I can read the doc.
Maybe, but unlikely.

Now that I know where the HTML one is I will use that.

> Brian/James: do you think we should ship the HTML output with the source
> kit?  I was always under the impression that only source should be
> shipped in a source kit and the customer is expected to use 'make' to
> build it, thus placing a build dependency on an SGML to HTML converter.
> I guess configure will need to find a suitable converter?
>
> > I've even said on this list I'd pay for it if I could just GET a binary
> > that would install and work. I haven't seen one offered up yet.
> > AND THE OFFER STILL STANDS.
>
> Remind me, what platform do you want the binary for?
> Perhaps I can help.

Mac OS X 10.1