On Friday 20 July 2007 4:55 pm, Bill Schwab wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I grabbed what I believe are the correct archives from
>
>   http://www.squeakvm.org/unix/
>
> but something doesn't quite look right to me - probably my fault.  For
> example, each of
>
>    Squeak-3.9-8.i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.gz
This is the VM binary for a specific platform.
>    Squeak-3.9a-7024.image.tar.gz
This is the Squeak image. It is platform independent. The image file is 
interpreted by the platform vm to create a Squeak session.
>    Squeak-3.sources.tar.gz
This is the source code for the image file. It is platform independent and 
optional (for code browsing and programming). Be warned!, though the sources 
and changes files look like text files, they are really a binary files 
containing code strings. The image file contains pointers into these files.
>
> Should I unpack so that everything is "aligned" (e.g. one copy of the
> install script in the directory structure) or respect the minor version
Yes. Read the INSTALL file in the first package for details.
> The next question is where to unpack.  Do the files belong in any
> particular place, or can they be placed anywhere and then deleted after
> running the script?
Any writable location (see below).  The install script does not check 
dependencies or package conflicts and requires root permissions for default 
locations. On most distros, you may want to add package building code and 
install the package instead.
> In summary, I am trying to move beyond simply getting it to work to
> (hopefully) understanding why it works and how to not leave a bunch of
> junk on the file system.
Squeak can run from any location, so if you don't have root permissions, you 
can install into your home directory or USB flash memory and work out of it.
One way is to do everything under your home path (say ~/squeak-dev). You may 
want to use a custom launch script with a line like:
   PREFIX=~/squeakvm/usr
  $BASE/bin/squeak -plugins $BASE/bin ..... $BASE/lib/squeak.image

Hope this helps .. Subbu