On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 04:49:33PM -0300, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. wrote:
There are two different use cases we are interested in handling. The first is making things nicer in the future for Linux users. That can be done with new or changed code on both the image side and the VM packages. The second use case, which the survey will be for, is making the 4.3 image usable for users who got their current VMs from their distribution instead of from squeak.org. In this situation we can't make any modifications to the VM since these won't get included in all distributions soon enough to help.
Of course, we have to be reasonable. I am stuck in Fedora 10, for example (their installation system can deal with RAID in the root partition, but their upgrade system can't). And during a long time I was stuck with a 3.7-7 VM because newer ones broke diacritical marks for all but the Etoys images. It wouldn't make any sense to try to support someone in that situation. That has been fixed and I now use a 4.0.3-2202 VM. Using that with a proposed 4.3 image gets me
- exec padsp /usr/local/lib/squeak/4.0.3-2202/squeakvm
Squeak4.3alpha-11636.image This interpreter (vers. 6502) cannot read image file (vers. 6505).
To check my understanding, you are using the 4.0.3-2202 because you are stuck on an older Linux version, and the newer VMs do not run on that older platform due to runtime library differences on the older Linux system that you use versus the newer Linux system on which the VM was compiled. Is that right?
For reference:
The 4.0.3-2202 VM cannot read a Cog (6505) image. Any VM labeled 4.3.3-xxxx or newer has the ability to read this image format (where the "4.3.3" part refers to VMMaker version, and "xxxx" is version level of the associated platform support code).
The current released VM version for Unix/Linux on http://www.squeakvm.org/unix/ is 4.4.7-2357, and this is the version in the Squeak 4.2 All-in-one link on squeak.org. If we still have links pointing users to the old 4.0.3-2202 VM, that is probably something that should be fixed.
All versions of Cog and StackVM from Eliot or Igor support the 6505 image format, and any image saved from any of these VMs is fully functional on any of the others.
Dave
David T. Lewis wrote:
On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 04:49:33PM -0300, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. wrote:
[my old Linux system]
To check my understanding, you are using the 4.0.3-2202 because you are stuck on an older Linux version, and the newer VMs do not run on that older platform due to runtime library differences on the older Linux system that you use versus the newer Linux system on which the VM was compiled. Is that right?
I have not yet tested newer VMs, but there is a good chance that they will work even on Fedora 10. What I was trying to say is that there are many different situations out there and we should not attempt to support most of them, like mine. About people being "smart enough", we have to pick some situations where they aren't and make it "just work" for them and, unfortunately, let the rest take care of themselves.
In another email you suggested a role of an official Squeak ambassador for dealing with the various package mantainers in the Linux distributions, right? I think that is a good idea - most such mantainers take care of many packages other than Squeak and don't have time to pay too much attention to what we do nor do they know very much about it. If someone had the emails of all these people and could keep them updated and answer their questions it would help a lot.
-- Jecel
squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org
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David T. Lewis -
Jecel Assumpcao Jr.