> Hi all,
>
> I've been having trouble getting *any* sort of Smalltalk working on
> Linux.  But ultimately I got Pharo (my first choice) working on Debian
> Jessie.
>
> It wasn't terribly hard in the end, but since the instructions at
> http://pharo.org/gnu-linux-installation#64-bit-System-Setup seem to be
> out of date, I thought it might be helpful to post something in case
> those in charge of that page would like to update.  Since there is no
> issue tracker, I assume this is a good a place as any.
>
>
> ## Short Version ##
>
> * sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
> * sudo apt-get update
> * sudo apt-get install lib32zl lib32ncurses5
>
> Note that there is no ia32-libs package on Jessie, as far as I can
> tell.  (I have no idea whether you actually need to install
> lib32ncurses5, but those were what apt-get suggested, and it worked.)
>
> I do have a startup error -- "MessageNotUnderstood:
> EmbeddedFreeTypeFontInstaller>>failedToOpen:Index:" -- but it doesn't
> seem to break anything.
>
>
> ## Longer version / Rant ##
>
> Pharo turned out to be impossible on my netbook (where I would like to
> use it, sadly) because it is still running Crunchbang, which is Debian
> Woody under the hood. So in theory the fix from the 64bit install page
> should work.  It doesn't, though -- some sort of problem with #! I suppose
>
>     "The following packages have unmet dependacies:
>         ia32-libs: Depends: ia32-libs-i386"
>
> Squeak, as downloaded from their site, has exactly the same problem.
>
> Pharo isn't in the Debian Repository, but an old version of the Squeak
> VM -- *just* the VM -- is.  (Not sure what the point of that is.)  It
> doesn't work with the current Squeak image from the website. I did
> eventually manage to get a compatible image ... via FTP.  Good grief.  
> (Good enough to learn the ropes, I suppose.)
>
> I really didn't want to go the Gnu Smalltalk road, but in desperation
> I tried it. Under both Crunchbang and Debian Jessie, the gst-browser
> package falls over immediately when you start it, a great big error
> trace I won't bother to paste here.  These are packages in the
> *repository*. Is no-one maintaining them?
>
>
> The point of this rant is to give context to the following:  thank
> you.  Really, thank you, to the folks behind Pharo and everyone
> reading this.
>
> This is the problem with FOSS: blink, and yesterday's rave technology
> is gone. And Smalltalk is *important* -- I'm not a Smalltalk
> programmer, but every time I play with it I learn so much about OOP,
> programming, and good design of classes.  And I keep coming back to
> try to work with it again, because it offers things I want and just
> can't get elsewhere.  The idea that Smalltalk might one day just ...
> not run? Not worth thinking about.
>
>
> Okay, broke a cardinal rule here.  Apologies for joining a mailing
> list and then immediately posting a long rant.  Going to Lurk Mode now!
>
> Shadow.
>
>