Hi!

> I always have problems installing Squeak on linux and
> upgrading to Squeak 3.9 from Squeak 3.8 is no different.

:) Yeah, it can be a bit confusing.

> In fact, so far, this time around I have failed.
>
> On the Squeak download page  (www.squeak.org/Download)
> is says to download three files:
>       the virtual machine (done),
>       the image file (done),
>      and the Sources file (I don't see this file anywhere) on this page.
>      (I believe that I can use the 3.8 sources file here but I must need
>      to fetch a changes file somewhere?????
>
> Upon downloading the virtual machine file and untaring it I scanned
> the INSTALL file.  It says:
>     "
>             If you don't already have the image/changes files
>             corresponding to version X.Y then you also need to fetch:
>                   Squeak-X.Y-image.tar.gz
>     "
>
>  I don't see this file anywhere.
>
> Each previous time I installed Squeak the inisqueak command failed
> to be installed.  I hope at least that this problem is fixed this time
> around
> but haven't reached this point yet.
> Can someone tell me what I am supposed to do now?

First of all - if you are on Debian (I presume not) then the easiest path
to get Squeak installed is to follow instructions on the swiki:

    http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/3616

Having said that - even though I *am* on Debian I actually prefer to build
my own VM from source. So I would do the following for 3.9 (haven't
actually used 3.9 images on unix/linux yet):

1. Pull down the 3.9-8 source for the VM and follow build/install
instructions. If you are on a non-developer box this will most probably
force you to install a few more things like gcc, dev-packages for X11 etc.

2. Pull down the SqueakV39.sources file and put it in
/usr/local/lib/squeak/ BEWARE: From 3.9 this is a new version, the
SqueakV3.source is for pre 3.9. I note that Ian has missed this bit on his
pages on squeakvm.org.

3. Pull down any image/changes pair on demand from ftp.squeak.org in local
directories - I don't bother to "install" them anywhere. As you know these
two files always travel in pairs and are cross platform.

And the inisqueak script really doesn't "do" much so I typically don't
bother with it. For a while Ian forgot to include it, not sure if it is
included these days in step 1 above. It IS included in the Debian packages
though.

> Thanks.
>
> Ralph Boland   (Yearning for the day when I can do a confusion free Squeak
> install)

I also wrote a blog article a while back on VM building (with more details
- typically aimed at people experimenting with plugins etc):

    http://goran.krampe.se/blog/Squeak/vmmaker.rdoc

Perhaps I should revisit it and include some more details (dependencies
for building etc - I recently redid it on a plain Debian box).

regards, Göran

PS. On modern Linux and some other Unixes like Solaris or OpenBSD you will
most likely stumble on the annoying VM issue with virtual memory location:
http://bugs.squeak.org/view.php?id=1486

The short answer is to use "-mmap xxxM" (it also seems to work for me with
-memory xxxM") which will make the OS locate Squeak in the lower parts of
virtual memory (I think) and thus work around the issue.