Midnight commander package

[Karol Sobczak]

Hi all,

I have managed to port midnight commander 4.6.2 to minix3. I am
attaching source minix package. Dependences are: ncurses, glibc, gcc,
automake. It should compile fine (hopefully), however networking is
not enabled. Any comments appreciated.

Karol

[Fernando del Valle]

Thanks for the port, but I can't compile it.
First I had to touch intl/makefile to change AR = ar , to AR = gar
(in order to use gnu instead of ack's ar), and now I get a symbol
undeclared: ENETUNREACH. Is there some config to disable networking,
or I'm missing something else. I compiled it with the last
prerealease 3.1.5.

>  mc-4.6.2.tar.bz2
> 3070KViewDownload

[Karol Sobczak]

I am attaching new version of mc-4.6.2 source package. The previous
one was reported as damaged to me. I have also modified build.minix
script slightly.

2009/10/25 Fernando del Valle <fernando...@gmail.com>:

>
> Thanks for the port, but I can't compile it.
> First I had to touch intl/makefile to change AR = ar , to AR = gar
> (in order to use gnu instead of ack's ar), and now I get a symbol
> undeclared: ENETUNREACH. Is there some config to disable networking,
> or I'm missing something else.  I compiled it with the last
> prerealease 3.1.5.

Try to run build.minix script. In this script I have disabled
networking in configuration phase and also set up some other
parameters like paths and compilers. I have build my mc binaries using
minix 3.1.4, so it might not work with previous versions.

Kind regards,
Karol Sobczak

[Roman Ignatov]

Thanks for the port mc, but I can't compile it also. May be you create
binary package?

Roman

[Karol Sobczak]

Ok, I have installed fresh Minix 3.1.15 and dependency packages and
then compiled mc-4.6.2 and it worked fine for me. GNU grep is another
dependency needed to compile mc. I have also created binary package as
requested and attaching it to this post.

Karol

[Roman Ignatov]

MC work under Xorg success!

Thanks, Karol!

[Fernando del Valle]

It works, thanks!!

>  mc-4.6.2-bin.tar.bz2
> 1984KViewDownload

[tota]

Midnight Commander works!
Thank you very much!

Tota

[tota]

Midnight Commander add in software on www.minix3.org?

Tota

[Karol Sobczak]

How to put package there? In FAQ it was said that new packages should
be announced here.

2009/10/30 tota <tota...@yandex.ru>:

[Ondekoza]

Indeed, there seems to be no established process to add packages.
As of today, there is no such thing as a "minix-distribution". The
kernel, the kernel-sources,
the packages on the page

http://www.minix3.org/software/

seem quite unrelated. I don't know how the release manager of the ISO-
images does his job.
Perhaps there ain't no rules. The problem of package management has
been discussed earlier in this
group but obviously with little effect.

Perhaps it is a good idea to use a public open-source repository for
your package.
It would be even better if your patches were integrated upstream.
The Minix developers use https://gforge.cs.vu.nl/gf/project/minix/,
but I don't know if registration is somehow limited to a particular
set of programmers.
Stefan

[tota]

> How to put package there? In FAQ it was said that new packages should
> be announced here.

There can be someone from official developers will help?

Tota

[tota]

Who official software maintainer?

Tota

[Ondekoza]

Deducing from previous posts, Mr Benjamin Gras should be a good
address.

On 30 Okt., 14:04, tota <totali...@yandex.ru> wrote:
> Who official software maintainer?
>
> Tota

[AntoineLeca]

On October 30th, 13:40, Ondekoza wrote:
> Indeed, there seems to be no established process to add packages.

It seems to me that the small guidelines under http://wiki.minix3.org/en/HowToContribute
do provide a framework, that some people had used successfully to have
their packages integrated; and some even had echoed here.
I also believe that using tracker is the correct tool to use
(certainly much better than sending a post here, for example.) Perhaps
it could be useful to revise more often those trackers (I know Erik is
doing a tremendous job here.) Obviously VU's resources are limited,
though, so expecting less than a week to attend any request is
definitively impossible.

One problem with packages is that it is always very difficult to say
'no' to the incorporation of a new package; in fact, any such process
has to explain how to NOT add a package ;-).

> As of today, there is no such thing as a "minix-distribution".

Those thingies linked to http://www.minix3.org/download/ do look like
distributions to me.
See also http://www.minix3.ru/distr.html (but Roman apparently
shrinked it.)

> The kernel, the kernel-sources,
> the packages on the page
>
> http://www.minix3.org/software/
>
> seem quite unrelated.

I am not sure I understand your point. Minix is small enough to have
all of the kernel, the servers, the drivers, and the userland
commands, both the binaries with their sources, distributed together
since the very beginning. Only the form of the distributions changed
over the years.

With Minix 3 and its increased limits and its stabilized 'inet'
support, hence it being not any more a toy OS, VU set up a "package"
system, where there is a strong difference between the binary package
(which is immediately usable) and the -source tarball, which is merely
for reference (or hacking). An advantage of the -source packages is to
avoid downloading huge trees from the SVN server (the /trunk/bigports/
part), while those source trees are not evolving or only evolve very
slowly.

So all in all, I find the current setup to fit well the needs.
But I know there is a limit at 700 MB; and we are currently above that
limit: as a result, Minix is not anymore distributed with X11 sources,
while it could be one of the most useful package to hack, particularly
when your card is not supported :-(.
I guess the next stop is to have only the binaries incorporated on the
(main, first) distribution CD, and that the -source tarballs will have
to go elsewhere, probably in a supplementary (ISO9066?) disc.


> The Minix developers usehttps://gforge.cs.vu.nl/gf/project/minix/,

> but I don't know if registration is somehow limited to a particular
> set of programmers.

https://gforge.cs.vu.nl/gf/account/?action=UserAdd does not work for
you?


Antoine

[Ondekoza]

Hello Antoine,

thank you for your elaborate answer. If my criticism should have
unsettled you,
I wish to apologize. You know, I exaggerated my reasoning just to make
a point.
I feel that the Minix-project is working way behind its possibilities
by employing
methods of conduct that are outdated, measured by today standards.

But let me go through your points step by step:

The HowToContribute page is an enhancement, but the page itself does
hardly
contain any information, but links to the

a) The Wishlist
The wishlist is outdated. Some of the wished for packages have
already been ported.
Then there is a section 'Ported applications'. I can't understand we
they are on that page.
I would certainly not look for them there. Some of the packages,
linked there are
on hosted on rapidshare. The links do not work.

b) The roadmap.
There are no (not even approximate) dates. The information 'Long-term-
projects will
take 6 month' is useless. There is no information if so. is working on
them, when the work
started, and when it shall be finished. Additionally there is little
contact information
on the wiki pages.

b) 'Contributing Patches' the Tracker.
If I click on that link, I retrieve another page, with two options
'Bugs' and 'Feature Requests',
neither of which is obviously permitting the posting of patches
against the Minix-kernel or
base-system.

c) 'Contributing Packages' via the Tracker.
Ooops, that brings me to the same page. No link 'Submit your package
here' or 'Create an
account to submit your patches or package'

d) The PortingGuide
Well, now we are getting somewhere. Incidentally, this page was mostly
written by me.

e) MakingPackmanPackage.
That guide is quite useful, but:

There's too little integration here. The building of a minix-package
should work like this:

makepackman mygreatapp.tar.gz

A note on distributions:
Well, yes, there really is a 'Minix-distribution' on the page you
linked, that's where I d/l
my iso. Only, there is hardly any evidence, that this is the case. The
install-guide and
hw-requirements list is for release 3.1.2. The current stable seems to
be 3.1.3. There
are an interim and a prerelease. Which to use for what purpose is a
mystery. There
are no release notes for the latter two.

On http://www.minix3.org/software/ is a list of packages, perhaps
contained on one
of the iso-images, but which one? Any how to install them? Deducing
from
some previous posts, it's not possible to remove packages.

Yes, it is a minix-distro. But not from the standpoint of current
modern Linux or
even BSD-distributions. And there is no reason, why it should be that
way. The
technology and tools are available to build iso-images from predefined
sources.
There is a couple of projects to make live-cds. I cannot believe that
they can't be
applied to Minix.

By the way, I don't think that patching the packages on
http://www.minix3.org/software/
esp. for minix is the way to go. These packages are effectively forks.
When new
versions are created upstream, the minix-maintainer has to apply the
patches
manually, resulting in a large amount of duplicated work. The (in my
eyes)
correct way would be to include the minix-patches upstream and to
setup the
packman-infrastructure, so that the upstream-maintainers are not
bothered
by Minix-intricacies. (e.g. by not requiring that Makefile.Minix is in
the root
dir of the archive). Want proof?
Let's try 4 random packages:
antiword.0.35 is out of date. FreeBSD packages 0.37
apache? never mind.
cpio 2.5? Karmic koala uses 2.10
gettext 0.14, that is 0.15 in Debian-Lenny

I like the two-fold approach of allowing the user to choose whether
she
wants to re-compile the source-package or to d/l the binary-version,
but. you see,
I cannot find any reference what to do if my NIC is not supported.

You say "I find the current setup to fit well the needs."
Well yes, but only if your needs are small, your knowledge is big and
you
have quite some time at your hands to work yourself into the
delicacies
of the Minix-ecosystem.

To be honest I didn't yet try to register at gforge, but yet, I didn't
have any
incentive to do so. I am not so much interested in kernel land, I wish
to
help to implement methods and processes to increase the leverage of
existing tools and solutions and I can't find anyone I could
address ...
Yes, I could upload patches or even packages there, but remember my
rant above.

I believe that Minix has a lot of potential, and right now many
excellent
developers cannot concentrate on enhancing minix, because they have
to circumvent the lack of integration and tools and standardization.

Yours,
Stefan <ondekoza>

[Ondekoza]

And sorry for the bad wrapping. I really edited my post carefully to
have it scrambled by the groups' formatter.
Stefan

[D.C. van Moolenbroek]

Hi,

> But let me go through your points step by step:

You make a number of valid points. However, as Antoine mentioned, our
resources are very limited and as long as even the base system is
changing heavily all the time, packages receive relatively little
attention. We are looking into improving the entire packages
situation, but this involves taking a number of important decisions
about various aspects of the issue - we'd like to do this in such a
way that we're all happy with it and it will last for a long time. As
such, it may take quite a while before we get there.

As a small first step, there is now a "New Packages" tracker on gforge
[0]. This allows anyone to submit packages in a single place. We'll
update our documentation to point to it shortly. Porters are still
encouraged to report about new packages here in the group, but at
least the actual packages will be in one single place, and it will be
very clear which packages we have processed and which we have not.
Also, it will eliminate from this group the big attachments that some
people have been complaining about.. :)

Please note that the "New Packages" tracker has new, specific
instructions on how to post packages there. They show up at the top of
the "Add new Tracker Item" page, although not very clearly, because
gforge doesn't seem to know about newlines. In any case, people who
have already posted packages here in the group, are also very much
encouraged to put their packages in this new tracker.

Regards,
David

[0] http://gforge.cs.vu.nl/gf/project/minix/tracker/?action=TrackerItemBrowse&tracker_id=531

[AntoineLeca]

On Nov 3rd, 21:06, Ondekoza wrote:
> thank you for your elaborate answer. If my criticism should have
> unsettled you, I wish to apologize.

There is no need to apologize. As you correctly interpreted, I was
writing tongue-in-speech, too.

Furthermore, I believe your very constructive answer might help the VU
team to enhance its project management.

> I cannot find any reference what to do if my NIC is not supported.

Well, what you should do is to have it supported!
OK, this is another problem altogether, and it is quite well known...
and is pretty documented almost everywhere, since this particular
problem is plagging Minix since at least year 2000! (and it is also
plagging me right now, so I very well understand your point :-))

To continue with what David confirmed, I believe VU team have
overlimited (undersized) resources, and they have to do choices. And
there, I really think (like I read David does) that the NIC
infrastructure is more important than up-to-date packages.

> You say "I find the current setup to fit well the needs."
> Well yes, but only if your needs are small, your knowledge is big

:-) But I see your point, and to be frank it begs me as a problem: I
believe Minix is requiring a bit too much of computer litteracy to be
participated in, and it could prove a barrier for new, fresh, working
forces to enter the project. OTOH a steep learning curve always create
very motivated people!

> and youhave quite some time at your hands to work yourself into

> the delicacies of the Minix-ecosystem.

Unfortunately, I have not :-(, so my contribution to Minix3 is lagging
much more than I would like.


Antoine

[Ondekoza]

Well said :-)

[D.C. van Moolenbroek]

Dear all,

Due to popular request (no that doesn't always work :)), the midnight
commander port has been added as package to minix. You can get it with
packman; also install the new "terminfo" package. If you want function
keys to work on the minix console (instead of the IS dumps), issue
"debug_fkeys=0" on the boot monitor before booting minix - note that
this requires the very latest SVN trunk (r5802). On X this will work
out of the box, although you may have to "export TERM=xterm-color" in
your xterm in order to see colors.

Compilation from source should now be straightforward too; just make
sure that you install all the packages listed in the .bdeps file that
is part of the mc-4.6.2 port source.

Regards,
David

[D.C. van Moolenbroek]

> also install the new "terminfo" package

Nevermind that. Instead, also install the "ncurses-5.5" package, which
comes with its own (now updated) terminfo database (how could I
forget..).

Regards,
David

[Niek Linnenbank]

Finally, my favorite editor on MINIX! Thanks a lot! :-)

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "minix3" group.
To post to this group, send email to min...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to minix3+un...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/minix3?hl=en.

--
Niek Linnenbank

WWW: http://www.nieklinnenbank.nl/
BLOG: http://nieklinnenbank.wordpress.com/
FUN:    http://www.FreeNOS.org/