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A 1 million bucks question :)

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Igor Stasenko

A 1 million bucks question :)

Hello guys,

i used squeak on linux couple of times and installed it using
'official' way - from repositories.
The problem with it, that VM & image loaded in that way is years old.
I remember, there was a bit of tension between linux distro
maintainers and the way how squeak distributing itself(image, not
sources).
So, i guess its hopeless to expect it up-to-date in linux distros.
What should i do to get latest & hottest prebuilt VM available, can
anyone direct me to the right place?
And yes, I could build it myself, but i looking for binaries.
Is there a pre-built package(s) which i can download by myself and install?

P.S. sorry for my ignorant questions.
P.P.S. Sorry for trollish topic name, i'm in a good mood. ;)

--
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

Ken Causey-3

Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

On Tue, 2009-12-15 at 03:27 +0200, Igor Stasenko wrote:

> Hello guys,
>
> i used squeak on linux couple of times and installed it using
> 'official' way - from repositories.
> The problem with it, that VM & image loaded in that way is years old.
> I remember, there was a bit of tension between linux distro
> maintainers and the way how squeak distributing itself(image, not
> sources).
> So, i guess its hopeless to expect it up-to-date in linux distros.
> What should i do to get latest & hottest prebuilt VM available, can
> anyone direct me to the right place?
> And yes, I could build it myself, but i looking for binaries.
> Is there a pre-built package(s) which i can download by myself and install?
>
> P.S. sorry for my ignorant questions.
> P.P.S. Sorry for trollish topic name, i'm in a good mood. ;)

You have looked at http://www.squeakvm.org/unix/ I assume? Otherwise it
might help if you reminded us of the distribution you use or
distribution format you would like to find (deb, rpm, etc.).

Ken

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David T. Lewis

Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 07:35:41PM -0600, Ken Causey wrote:

> On Tue, 2009-12-15 at 03:27 +0200, Igor Stasenko wrote:
> > Hello guys,
> >
> > i used squeak on linux couple of times and installed it using
> > 'official' way - from repositories.
> > The problem with it, that VM & image loaded in that way is years old.
> > I remember, there was a bit of tension between linux distro
> > maintainers and the way how squeak distributing itself(image, not
> > sources).
> > So, i guess its hopeless to expect it up-to-date in linux distros.
> > What should i do to get latest & hottest prebuilt VM available, can
> > anyone direct me to the right place?
> > And yes, I could build it myself, but i looking for binaries.
> > Is there a pre-built package(s) which i can download by myself and install?
> >
> > P.S. sorry for my ignorant questions.
> > P.P.S. Sorry for trollish topic name, i'm in a good mood. ;)
>
> You have looked at http://www.squeakvm.org/unix/ I assume? Otherwise it
> might help if you reminded us of the distribution you use or
> distribution format you would like to find (deb, rpm, etc.).

The latest precompiled Unix VMs (Linux etc) are always at
http://www.squeakvm.org/unix/. Packages for Linux distributions are
another matter, and this has not been as well organized or supported
as you might hope. Bert Freudenberg has tried to coordinate some
activity on this front. I don't exactly know the status of these
efforts, and I'm not sure that there is currently any reliable source
of VM installation packages for the major Linux distros aside from
the squeakvm.org site. Hopefully someone else can speak up with better
information.

Dave

Yoshiki Ohshima-2

Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

In reply to this post by Igor Stasenko

At Tue, 15 Dec 2009 03:27:57 +0200,
Igor Stasenko wrote:

>
> Hello guys,
>
> i used squeak on linux couple of times and installed it using
> 'official' way - from repositories.
> The problem with it, that VM & image loaded in that way is years old.
> I remember, there was a bit of tension between linux distro
> maintainers and the way how squeak distributing itself(image, not
> sources).
> So, i guess its hopeless to expect it up-to-date in linux distros.
> What should i do to get latest & hottest prebuilt VM available, can
> anyone direct me to the right place?
> And yes, I could build it myself, but i looking for binaries.
> Is there a pre-built package(s) which i can download by myself and install?
>
> P.S. sorry for my ignorant questions.
> P.P.S. Sorry for trollish topic name, i'm in a good mood. ;)

For some distros, the image (Etoys) is also accepted. Try

http://rpm.pbone.net/

and look up "etoys". "squeak-vm" is also available for some.

-- Yoshiki

Andreas.Raab

Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

In reply to this post by Igor Stasenko

That is a Really Good Question (tm). I have never really understood the
way software distribution works on Linux. I'd *love* to have some distro
or other pull "squeak-blabla[.dep|.rpm|.whatchamacallit]" directly from
squeak.org. Anyone having an insight whether that is even feasible? And
if so, what loops one needs to go through to make this happen?

Cheers,
- Andreas

Igor Stasenko wrote:

Ken Causey-3

RE: Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

In reply to this post by Igor Stasenko

The details I don't have right off-hand but this has been done at least
for Debian now at least twice. First for at least a couple of years Lex
Spoon maintained a repository, then more recently someone whose name I
just can't remember right now, but whose username is kosik, has
maintained a Debian repository at

http://ftp.squeak.org/debian/

and anyone that wished to download from it simply added this to their
apt configuration. I assume the difficulty is on the same order of
difficulty if not simpler for rpm-based distributions.

The problem is not getting started on this sort of project, it is
maintaining momentum. The current repository is over 2 years out of
date.

Part of the problem is that the potential user-base of any particular
repository is probably not that large. I myself have been a Debian user
for a decade or more and while I used the available repository a couple
of times, inevitably for one reason or another I always built my own VMs
and used a wide range of images and as such the repository was of little
use to me. While I'm sure there are some users, certainly it would be
useful to newcomers, the reality is that the more hardcore users find it
more limiting than useful.

Ken

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [squeak-dev] Re: A 1 million bucks question :)
> From: Andreas Raab <[hidden email]>
> Date: Mon, December 14, 2009 8:30 pm
> To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> <[hidden email]>
>
>
> That is a Really Good Question (tm). I have never really understood the
> way software distribution works on Linux. I'd *love* to have some distro
> or other pull "squeak-blabla[.dep|.rpm|.whatchamacallit]" directly from
> squeak.org. Anyone having an insight whether that is even feasible? And
> if so, what loops one needs to go through to make this happen?
>
> Cheers,
> - Andreas
>
> Igor Stasenko wrote:
> > Hello guys,
> >
> > i used squeak on linux couple of times and installed it using
> > 'official' way - from repositories.
> > The problem with it, that VM & image loaded in that way is years old.
> > I remember, there was a bit of tension between linux distro
> > maintainers and the way how squeak distributing itself(image, not
> > sources).
> > So, i guess its hopeless to expect it up-to-date in linux distros.
> > What should i do to get latest & hottest prebuilt VM available, can
> > anyone direct me to the right place?
> > And yes, I could build it myself, but i looking for binaries.
> > Is there a pre-built package(s) which i can download by myself and install?
> >
> > P.S. sorry for my ignorant questions.
> > P.P.S. Sorry for trollish topic name, i'm in a good mood. ;)
> >

Andreas.Raab

Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

Ken Causey wrote:
> Part of the problem is that the potential user-base of any particular
> repository is probably not that large. I myself have been a Debian user
> for a decade or more and while I used the available repository a couple
> of times, inevitably for one reason or another I always built my own VMs
> and used a wide range of images and as such the repository was of little
> use to me. While I'm sure there are some users, certainly it would be
> useful to newcomers, the reality is that the more hardcore users find it
> more limiting than useful.

I think that's well-understood. The target audience is probably not
hard-core users but rather those where you're with a friend running
Linux and want to say "just type apt-get squeak" or somesuch. But like I
was saying, I know little of these matters so I'm not certain how
valuable that would be. What do others think?

Cheers,
- Andreas

Josh Gargus

Re: Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

On Dec 14, 2009, at 7:43 PM, Andreas Raab wrote:

> Ken Causey wrote:
>> Part of the problem is that the potential user-base of any particular
>> repository is probably not that large. I myself have been a Debian user
>> for a decade or more and while I used the available repository a couple
>> of times, inevitably for one reason or another I always built my own VMs
>> and used a wide range of images and as such the repository was of little
>> use to me. While I'm sure there are some users, certainly it would be
>> useful to newcomers, the reality is that the more hardcore users find it
>> more limiting than useful.
>
> I think that's well-understood. The target audience is probably not hard-core users but rather those where you're with a friend running Linux and want to say "just type apt-get squeak" or somesuch. But like I was saying, I know little of these matters so I'm not certain how valuable that would be. What do others think?

Typically, I don't expect 'apt-get foo' to provide the most recent version of the package. I expect more important/popular packages to be more recent, but it's not surprising if 'apt-get obscure-app' gives me something 6 months old. At least when I'm at my friend's place, it gets me something useful without having to configure apt use an external repository.

I gather that for people who are more serious about getting the latest versions of this-or-that, the standard practice is to configure apt to look in a non-default repository (assuming that someone like Lex has set one up). Seems like a bit of a hassle to me, but others might like it.

Cheers,
Josh

>
> Cheers,
> - Andreas
>

David T. Lewis

Re: Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

In reply to this post by Ken Causey-3

Matej Kosik <[hidden email]> has been working on Ubuntu/Debian
packaging, and a number of other people are either involved or interested.
See the thread "Ubuntu package maintainers help" at
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2009-April/135720.html

Bert provides an overview of the packaging situation in "Linux package
maintainers need help" thread at
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2009-April/135551.html

This might be a good topic for a board discussion. Bert is the most
knowledgeable person in this area and can probably summarize the
current state.

I would suggest focusing on one or at most two distributions
of general interest, preferably aligned with the EToys user base.
That serves the large base of users who really need an easy
installation, if there is good support for one distribution,
the others will readily follow that example.

Dave

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 08:14:10PM -0700, Ken Causey wrote:

> The details I don't have right off-hand but this has been done at least
> for Debian now at least twice. First for at least a couple of years Lex
> Spoon maintained a repository, then more recently someone whose name I
> just can't remember right now, but whose username is kosik, has
> maintained a Debian repository at
>
> http://ftp.squeak.org/debian/
>
> and anyone that wished to download from it simply added this to their
> apt configuration. I assume the difficulty is on the same order of
> difficulty if not simpler for rpm-based distributions.
>
> The problem is not getting started on this sort of project, it is
> maintaining momentum. The current repository is over 2 years out of
> date.
>
> Part of the problem is that the potential user-base of any particular
> repository is probably not that large. I myself have been a Debian user
> for a decade or more and while I used the available repository a couple
> of times, inevitably for one reason or another I always built my own VMs
> and used a wide range of images and as such the repository was of little
> use to me. While I'm sure there are some users, certainly it would be
> useful to newcomers, the reality is that the more hardcore users find it
> more limiting than useful.
>
> Ken
>
> > -------- Original Message --------
> > Subject: [squeak-dev] Re: A 1 million bucks question :)
> > From: Andreas Raab <[hidden email]>
> > Date: Mon, December 14, 2009 8:30 pm
> > To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> > <[hidden email]>
> >
> >
> > That is a Really Good Question (tm). I have never really understood the
> > way software distribution works on Linux. I'd *love* to have some distro
> > or other pull "squeak-blabla[.dep|.rpm|.whatchamacallit]" directly from
> > squeak.org. Anyone having an insight whether that is even feasible? And
> > if so, what loops one needs to go through to make this happen?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > - Andreas
> >
> > Igor Stasenko wrote:
> > > Hello guys,
> > >
> > > i used squeak on linux couple of times and installed it using
> > > 'official' way - from repositories.
> > > The problem with it, that VM & image loaded in that way is years old.
> > > I remember, there was a bit of tension between linux distro
> > > maintainers and the way how squeak distributing itself(image, not
> > > sources).
> > > So, i guess its hopeless to expect it up-to-date in linux distros.
> > > What should i do to get latest & hottest prebuilt VM available, can
> > > anyone direct me to the right place?
> > > And yes, I could build it myself, but i looking for binaries.
> > > Is there a pre-built package(s) which i can download by myself and install?
> > >
> > > P.S. sorry for my ignorant questions.
> > > P.P.S. Sorry for trollish topic name, i'm in a good mood. ;)
> > >
>

Ken Causey-3

RE: Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

In reply to this post by Igor Stasenko

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [squeak-dev] Re: A 1 million bucks question :)
> From: Andreas Raab <[hidden email]>
> Date: Mon, December 14, 2009 9:43 pm
> To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> <[hidden email]>
>
>
> Ken Causey wrote:
> > Part of the problem is that the potential user-base of any particular
> > repository is probably not that large. I myself have been a Debian user
> > for a decade or more and while I used the available repository a couple
> > of times, inevitably for one reason or another I always built my own VMs
> > and used a wide range of images and as such the repository was of little
> > use to me. While I'm sure there are some users, certainly it would be
> > useful to newcomers, the reality is that the more hardcore users find it
> > more limiting than useful.
>
> I think that's well-understood. The target audience is probably not
> hard-core users but rather those where you're with a friend running
> Linux and want to say "just type apt-get squeak" or somesuch. But like I
> was saying, I know little of these matters so I'm not certain how
> valuable that would be. What do others think?
>
> Cheers,
> - Andreas

As I see it the problem here is that once you are capable of setting up
and maintaining such a repository it has little value for you or many of
your colleagues. For a while the coolness factor and the opportunity to
say to a new user 'just add edit /etc/apt/apt.conf and add a line "blah
de blah", then run apt-get update ; apt-get install blah' is sufficient
return to maintain interest. But this wears off quickly and it begins
to seem like nothing more than a chore. The issue is how to transfer
the value the actual user sees in it to the maintainer.

I imagine that in a greater ecosystem like the Debian official
repositories you develop relationships with other package maintainers
and get kudos from your packaging efforts, and that this provides a
return that keeps the feedback loop running.

But such a feedback loop for this particular task doesn't really exist
within our community. As I've said repeatedly now, few 'core' users
would value it greatly.

Also, we are not alone in this. I've seen much the same thing occur in
other language communities where someone gets interested in a language
implementation, is a fan of a distribution and missed having said
implementation readily installable in the distribution or at least a
more up to date version readily installable. He takes it on himself to
get as close to that goal as immediately possible. This person
continues for a while but almost inevitably either drifts out of the
implementation community and so loses interest in maintaining it,
changes distributions and so doesn't want to maintain it, or again finds
little use for the work themselves and the new friends they are
gathering within the implementation community similarly have little use
for it, and so they get insufficient perceptible return for the effort
and let it go by the wayside.

I think it is possible for some individual to appear and have a
sustainable interest in such tasks. It does happen. But I see no way
to make it happen.

Ken

Michael van der Gulik-2

Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

In reply to this post by Igor Stasenko

On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 2:27 PM, Igor Stasenko <[hidden email]> wrote:

Other people have already answered this. I never use the packages and
I prefer to install VM binaries in the same directory as their images.

My preference would be to have a multi-platform installation: a zip file with:

Squeak/squeak-x86-windows.exe (windows VM)
Squeak/squeak-x86-64-windows.exe (windows VM)
Squeak/squeak-x86-linux (linux VM)
Squeak/squeak-x86-64-linux (linux VM)
Squeak/(whatever the MacOS executable is)
Squeak/plugins/ (plugins for each platform)
Squeak/squeak.image
Squeak/squeak.changes
Squeak/SqueakV?.sources
Squeak/ReadMe.txt ("This is Squeak version 3.11".....)

Then you have ONE file to download, and you can run Squeak from your
USB key regardless of the host computer and packaging system it uses.

Installers such as those windows ones ("setup.exe") or packaging
systems should download the latest version of this zip file from
squeak.org.

Gulik.

--
http://gulik.pbwiki.com/

Ken Causey-3

RE: Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

In reply to this post by Igor Stasenko

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: RE: [squeak-dev] Re: A 1 million bucks question :)
> From: "Ken Causey" <[hidden email]>
> Date: Mon, December 14, 2009 9:14 pm
> To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers list"
> <[hidden email]>

> [T]hen more recently someone whose name I
> just can't remember right now, but whose username is kosik, has
> maintained a Debian repository at
>
> http://ftp.squeak.org/debian/

I finally remembered, this is Matej Kosik. Thanks to him for the effort
he was willing to put into this.

Ken

K. K. Subramaniam

Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

In reply to this post by Igor Stasenko

On Tuesday 15 December 2009 06:57:57 am Igor Stasenko wrote:
> And yes, I could build it myself, but i looking for binaries.
> Is there a pre-built package(s) which i can download by myself and install?
http://squeakvm.org/unix

Choose the packaging format appropriate for your distro - deb, rpm, tgz or
sh.

BTW, 'squeak' is now a sh script that can be customized without rebuilding the
whole set. You can install it on a portable media (bootable linux) and carry
along your 'bag of bits'.

Subbu

K. K. Subramaniam

Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

In reply to this post by Michael van der Gulik-2

On Tuesday 15 December 2009 09:57:25 am Michael van der Gulik wrote:
> Then you have ONE file to download, and you can run Squeak from your
> USB key regardless of the host computer and packaging system it uses.
This is how Etoys works. It is the easiest way to share Squeak 'when visiting
a friend'. Kids often work on multiple computers - home, school, friends etc.
This is the easiest way to carry around their digital bits.

Way to go!
Subbu

Igor Stasenko

Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

Just to let you know,

i found that http://squeakvm.org/unix/release/Squeak-3.11.3.2135-linux_i386.sh
works just well out of the box on my freshly installed Ubuntu 9.10 -
32bit system.

--
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

garduino

Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

Sorry, just read now this topic.

As, on my case, .sh don't worked, I used the binaries, as is your
first question.

The steps I taken some times are:

- Downloaded Squeak-3.11.3.2135-linux_i386.tar.gz
- Decompress it
- As root user, copy its contents as follow:
---Copy /bin contents on usr/local/bin
---Copy /lib/squeak on usr/local/lib (You will get usr/local/lib/squeak)
---Copy /share/man/man1 on usr/local/share/man (You wil get
usr/local/share/man/man1)

And it's all.

HTH.
Germán.

2009/12/15 Igor Stasenko <[hidden email]>:

> Just to let you know,
>
> i found that http://squeakvm.org/unix/release/Squeak-3.11.3.2135-linux_i386.sh
> works just well out of the box on my freshly installed Ubuntu 9.10 -
> 32bit system.
>
>
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Igor Stasenko AKA sig.
>
>

K. K. Subramaniam

Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

On Tuesday 15 December 2009 04:33:26 pm Germán Arduino wrote:
> As, on my case, .sh don't worked, I used the binaries, as is your
> first question.
What exactly was the error and which distro did you face this problem?

All that the sh script does is to ask for a path and extract the binaries into
that path. You no longer need to lash yourself to a fixed location.

BTW, bin/squeak is for running a given image. bin/squeak.sh will pop up a file
manager dialog to choose an image file. if you are using KDE, you need to fix a
typo to get the native dialog:

sed -i -e 's/xkdialog/kdialog/' bin/squeak.sh

Subbu

Frank Shearar

Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

In reply to this post by Igor Stasenko

Igor Stasenko wrote:
> Just to let you know,
>
> i found that http://squeakvm.org/unix/release/Squeak-3.11.3.2135-linux_i386.sh
> works just well out of the box on my freshly installed Ubuntu 9.10 -
> 32bit system.

Or, if you like Squeak 3.9 (and are running Ubuntu 9.10), "apt-get
install squeak". Which of course is a neat illustration of what Ken
spoke of earlier: the version in the package often lags behind the most
recent version.

It's not an uncommon problem: Steel Bank Common Lisp's Ubuntu port
installs SBCL 1.0.29 when the latest version is 1.0.33, for instance.

frank

Levente Uzonyi-2

Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

On Wed, 16 Dec 2009, Frank Shearar wrote:

> Igor Stasenko wrote:
>> Just to let you know,
>>
>> i found that
>> http://squeakvm.org/unix/release/Squeak-3.11.3.2135-linux_i386.sh
>> works just well out of the box on my freshly installed Ubuntu 9.10 -
>> 32bit system.
>
> Or, if you like Squeak 3.9 (and are running Ubuntu 9.10), "apt-get install
> squeak". Which of course is a neat illustration of what Ken spoke of earlier:
> the version in the package often lags behind the most recent version.

IIRC that version is built without the gnuify script, therefore it's 50%
slower than a "normal" vm.

Levente

>
> It's not an uncommon problem: Steel Bank Common Lisp's Ubuntu port installs
> SBCL 1.0.29 when the latest version is 1.0.33, for instance.
>
> frank
>
>

Andreas.Raab

Re: A 1 million bucks question :)

In reply to this post by Frank Shearar

Question for the Unix folks: If we know that what you get via package
install is most likely very old, would it make sense to check inside
Squeak whether a new version is available? I.e., just a simple

(HTTPSocket httpGet: 'http://www.squeak.org/current_version') =
SystemVersion current ifFalse:[self inform: 'A new version of Squeak has
become available. Would you like to install it now?'].

might help get people more accustomed with later developments. Would
that be a sensible thing to do?

Cheers,
- Andreas

Frank Shearar wrote:

> Igor Stasenko wrote:
>> Just to let you know,
>>
>> i found that
>> http://squeakvm.org/unix/release/Squeak-3.11.3.2135-linux_i386.sh
>> works just well out of the box on my freshly installed Ubuntu 9.10 -
>> 32bit system.
>
> Or, if you like Squeak 3.9 (and are running Ubuntu 9.10), "apt-get
> install squeak". Which of course is a neat illustration of what Ken
> spoke of earlier: the version in the package often lags behind the most
> recent version.
>
> It's not an uncommon problem: Steel Bank Common Lisp's Ubuntu port
> installs SBCL 1.0.29 when the latest version is 1.0.33, for instance.
>
> frank
>
>

123