Greg:
The repositories do not contain the latest versions. For example, the
Debian Buster repository presents Xiphos 4.1, not the latest 4.2.
That is how I ended up reporting bugs that had been fixed. It is a wide
problem; I mention Xiphos, not as a bad example, but because I happened
to remember the version numbers.
Tom
Tom Sullivan
i...@beforgiven.info
FAX: 815-301-2835
---------------------
On 5/13/20 5:21 PM, Greg Hellings wrote:
On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 3:57 PM Tom Sullivan <i...@beforgiven.info
<mailto:i...@beforgiven.info>> wrote:
Y'all:
First, I recognize that as a writer and long retired developer and
engineer (and thus obsolete) that in terms of technical issues, I am
way
out of my league with all you C++ programmers and experts.
Second, I want to thank all of you for your hard work. Compared to what
is available for Windows and Mac users, available Bible software and
tools are sparse. You work as volunteers and on a shoestring budget.
Very many thanks. Without your work, I would be back to books and paper
without being able to search, compare versions, etc., with such ease.
Linux users are definitely an under served people group and you fill a
big need.
Some of you may remember my SwordHammer project. Frankly, it has
crashed
and burned. Due to an architecture decision that was not the best, it
became unwieldy. And now, due to changes in my life, I cannot continue,
though I had started on a new architecture. This has two consequences:
1. There probably is not any longer reason to continue on this list
much
longer.
2. I got an appreciation for the huge problem caused by incompatible
Linux distros. For example, I did not know that Ubuntu users were
limited to sudo, instead of being able to run as root.
Many of my previous interactions with this list have been caused by my
use of obsolete versions. I cannot help it. I seem only able to install
packages from the Debian repository (or download a *.deb suitable for
Debian Buster and install). I recently tried to compile and install
Sword (which worked), BibleTime (which crashed), and Xiphos (which I
was
not able to compile by various tries.) There are errors in the docs,
and
discrepancies between docs, and who knows what.) I failed. So I am
stuck, and that is not mainly your fault. The problem is that there is
no Linux-wide packaging or installation system. It may or may not be
technically feasible, I don't know). When things go wrong, I often have
no idea how to fix them.
You really shouldn't have to download any files. You should only have to
run "sudo apt update && sudo apt install bibletime". Or, if you want to
compile BibleTime from source but use the packaged Sword library, "sudo
apt install libsword-dev". Currently, Xiphos is not compatible with
Debian/Ubuntu because it depends on ancient libraries that are not
available in those distributions anymore. However, packagers for those
distros, until recently, were maintaining a heavily patched version of
Xiphos that was avilable in their repositories. All that was needed was
"sudo apt install xiphos". No downloading or building or manually
finding dependencies.
So I have two suggestions here, but let me start with an analogy.
When I
have to buy a new vehicle, my concern is not if the seat is nice and
the
radio works and the vanity light works. I want it to safely take me
where I want to go. If there is a rip in the seat or dents in the body
or some rust or something, I can live with that. So, I am willing to
live with what is in the repositories and not waste everybody else's
time with bug reports. I apologize for doing that. It was not
intentional, but that is what happened.
Suggestion 1: Clean up documentation. Prime exhibit: May Crosswire page
refers to Sword 1.8.0 with link for months with no mention of 1.8.1.
I'm not sure where you're looking. This is the download page for Sword
source http://crosswire.org/sword/develop/index.jsp and it mentions
1.8.1 without incident.
Suggestion 2: For the more popular distros, provide ready-to-go
packages, .deb files (or equivalent, such as .rpm) for installs and
updates, even if they do not hit the repositories until later. This
will
get users access who are not experts. In my opinion, for what it is
worth, this is at least as important as new features. Also allow users
an option to automatically check for updates and tell where to get a
new
package. I understand that this takes time and work. I would rather get
some new features and bug fixes, and be able to get and use them, than
new features I will never see because I can't compile or something. I
rather think that others are also in my position as well.
This is usually a Very Bad Idea for upstream projects. Every distro has
its own quirks, foibles, and differences. For instance, gtkhtml is still
avilable on Fedora but not on Ubuntu or Debian. As such, Xiphos can be
compiled rather readily on Fedora but not on Debian/Ubuntu without heavy
patching of the source to disable the editor features. Those are details
already managed by the packagers of those distributions and are quite a
nightmare for every upstream project to keep track of. Nor is it easy to
keep separate the very tiny tweaks that make up the Debian -> Ubuntu ->
Mint/Pop/etc food chain where downstream distributions consume upstream
packages in some manner. Providing a build is not something upstream
projects like Sword ought to do.
Should our docs be updated so that they work in those distros, where
possible? Yes. But it sounds like most of your difficulty was with the
package manager on the Debian (or Ubuntu?) system you were using. For an
end user, you should have just "sudo apt install <my pacage>" and been
able to get along without trouble. The fact you weren't was a failure on
the part of the distribution. Not on Sword, Crosswire, BibleTime, or
Xiphos. I have no idea what your ultimate goal is, though, so I can't
give you more particular details than that.
--Greg
For what it is worth, and sorry it is so long. Sorry again for wasting
all your time in the past. God bless you and keep up all the good work.
It is not perfect, but it is definitely good and I use your stuff many
hours a week and every day.
Sincerely,
Tom Sullivan
--
Tom Sullivan
i...@beforgiven.info
FAX: 815-301-2835
---------------------
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