From:	Christopher Croughton <crough45 AT amc DOT de>
Message-Id:	<97Apr1.181225gmt+0100.16641@internet01.amc.de>
Subject:	Re: ANNOUNCE: GNU Hello 1.3 uploaded to SimTel.NET
To:	eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il (Eli Zaretskii)
Date:	Tue, 1 Apr 1997 18:13:46 +0100
Cc:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
In-Reply-To:	<Pine.SUN.3.91.970401184908.21368G-100000@is> from "Eli Zaretskii" at Apr 1, 97 04:57:51 pm
Mime-Version:	1.0

Eli Zaretskii wrote:

> The latest releases of GNU packages are much more standard-conforming.  If
> your experience goes back half a year or more, then you will see an
> entirely different picture these days. 

Well, the packages probably do.  Actually, yes, 6 months is about right.
I'm not cmplaining about the individual GNU packages, they have all been 
pretty easy to install once I've worked out the local method (and pretty
free from gross errors; the only one I haven't been able to get to work
on the Alpha is groff; I'm glad the DJGPP version doesn't have that 
problem).

> AFAIK, libc is the single exception, because it has an elaborate 
> home-grown system of intertwined Makefiles, and is meant to be built as a 
> single piece.  Therefore, it should be moved as one piece.

Ah.  That was the first one I tried to recompile.  It probably coloured
my perceptions of "the way to do it"...

> Note that if you have only to patch a couple of library functions, you 
> don't need to rebuild the library at all.  Just compile each module and 
> use "ar rvs" to update the library.

Thanks, that's useful to know.  I'm not very familiar with 'ar' yet,
I can use it to build a library but I haven't got into replacing files.
I normally delete the library and rebuild it...

> (My guess is that the reason DJ Delorie needed to do it in such a complex 
> way is because the tools he used at the time were less powerful than what 
> we have now, otherwise, he would have done it in a more flexible way.)

I take it that means that it could be redone better now?  In what way are
they more flexible (I mean in what way which helps in this case)?  I'm
not a makefile expert either, I'd have done it in much the same way he did
(and have done in other projects).

> I use ftp.simtel.net, but it seems that your link with it is much slower 
> than mine.  However, cdrom.com updates itself almost instantly, so if 
> your link there is fast, use it.

That's a possibility, it's been one of the faster ones in the past (today
is a slow day, nothing better than 1KB/s from anywhere and Web averaging
under 100 bytes per second).

> I get 6-7KB/sec for a ``reasonable'' speed.

That would be reasonable here if I had the connection to myself.  A 64Kbit
line should deliver around 6-7Kbytes per second...

Chris

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