Well, revision 11 of Freecell Solver 1.6.4 with Autoconf support is on the
Freecell Solver web-site. It solves most problems I encountered during the
installation, including the fact that the board generation programs were
compiled with the same flags as the main library and executable. Download
and enjoy!
To take the autoconf support one step further I started maintiaing a SPEC
file for making Freecell Solver into a set of RPM package. For you
winfolks, RPM stands for RedHat Package Manager and it is a common
format for Linux packages. I tried to make it as RedHat-ish as possible,
even though I personally use the Mandrake Linux distribution.
Considering this, I think it will be eventually possible to make the KDE
games package and PySol (and GNOME games, once I get to it) dependant on
the "freecell-solver-libs" package, which can in turn be used by the
"freecell-solver" package to supply a standalone command-line executable.
Imagine Linux distributions containing packages that start with
"freecell-solver"... ;-)
One problem is that some distributions use the Debian format. If anybody
knows of a Debian or Debian-based distribution hacker that is willing to
maintain the Freecell Solver packages, please direct him to me. Putting
such a notice on one of the Debian list is also a good idea.
I have another dilemma, but it is a rather small one. Should I announce a
version 1.8.0 of Freecell Solver, just to indicate that it now supports
autoconf, RPM, etc. ? I think I should because although the code did not
substantially change, the switch to autoconf is quite a big deal and opens
a lot of new possibilities for Freecell Solver.
BTW, we also have another platform of interest: MS-Windows. Until this
version, I did not build Freecell Solver as a library (either static or
dynamic), and the package only contained the executable. Also, it is a ZIP
file and not a InstallShield or Microsoft Installer package like most
Windows people like (and for a reason, because they are the Windows
equivalent of RPMs).
I have InstallShield for Visual C++ here at the Technion, so I suppose I
can maintain such a thing. However, with the RPM maintainance, the
Autoconf maintainance, as well as the main C hacking, I will be investing
quite a lot of time in Freecell Solver that way. I can do my job and adapt
the Win32 makefile to build a DLL and whatever. But I'd like to outsource
the InstallShield package maintainance.
Regards and have fun,
Shlomi Fish
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish shlomif_at_vipe.technion.ac.il
Home Page:
http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
Home E-mail: shlomif_at_techie.com
A more experienced programmer does not make less bugs. He just realizes
what went wrong more quickly.
Received on Sun May 20 2001 - 00:34:35 IDT