consolidated downloads?

Doug Way dway at riskmetrics.com
Wed Apr 4 17:46:10 UTC 2001


Stephen Pair wrote:
> 
> It would be nice to have all downloads (stable and alpha) consolidated on
> squeak.org with the following information:
> 
>     - platform notes (specific to each OS)
>     - release notes
>     - installation instructions
> 
> Preferably, for each platform, you would have one downloadable file for the
> latest stable release,

Bruce O'Neel posted a proposed new ftp site structure last week which covers most of this, including a single downloadable file for each platform in separate platform directories.  There was general agreement that the structure looked good... I assume he just hasn't gotten around to doing the restructuring yet.  See his message:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/squeak/message/26509

Your suggestion that the full downloadable files include the .sources file is good, so you'd have everything you need in one downloadable.  I think the proposal above assumes this, but I'm not sure.  (Anyone griping about downloading a .sources file they already have can always download the compressed image/changes files and vm separately if they really want.  The single downloadables should be geared toward first-time users.)

Some brief release notes/install instructions for each platform might not be a bad idea.  At least, they should mention things like "The recommended VM to use with the Solaris 2.8 image is the 3.0-Solaris VM" or whatever, so there's no confusion.

> and one downloadable file for the latest alpha
> release.

Actually, I think there was general agreement that we *not* do this.  The alpha versions should be relatively hidden from newbies, and shouldn't be made into an all-in-one download, since newbies generally shouldn't be running alpha versions.

(Also, building an all-in-one downloadable for every new alpha release for every platform seems like an awful lot of extra work for Bruce, who's already doing a great job on a volunteer basis...)

> The downloadable file would contain everything necessary (vm,
> changes, sources, plugins, etc) to install and run that version of squeak.
> Credit should also be given to whomever bundles up a build.
> 
> Additionally, it might be useful to have a section for each platform that
> has "custom builds" for more advanced users.  This might be where someone
> has made a build with everything pluginized, or all plugins built-in, or a
> minimal image download, etc.  But, I would keep these clearly separate from
> the main downloads (the latest stable and alpha for each platform).

Not a bad idea... although there was a plugins directory for each platform in the above proposal.  Maybe an extra custombuilds directory (for C sources?) would make sense?

> Ideally, everything (all downloads) would be on squeak.org, making it easier
> to maintain, archive, and mirror.  Also, it might be good for the platform
> maintainers (or others) to be able to maintain or update the downloads for a
> given platform directly.

All the downloads are pretty much on the "primary ftp archive", which is the UIUC archive mentioned on squeak.org, and its mirrors.  Someone looking for a stable release (like Richard was), shouldn't have to look anywhere else.  (And this is mostly true today, except for some Unix platforms...)

- Doug Way
  dway at riskmetrics.com





More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list