Copying the Sfinx system

(version 1.01, dd 02Jan96)

It is now possible to copy a workable version of Sfinx onto a floppy to install at your Linux machine at home. Where needed, this version will be called MiniSfinx to avoid confusion, but it actually is a full working version of Sfinx (at least: Sfinx '95 a.k.a. SfinxLite).

It is assumed your home system is a Linux PC, since I know no one with e.g. a Sparc Station at home. If you have another type of system, you probably also have a DAT drive and lots of disk space, so you can copy over the whole Sfinx distribution.

WARNING

As of now, this MiniSfinx has only been tested on a Linux system with the Caldera desktop (based on Red Hat Linux). No guarantees can be made for installation on other types of Linux.

Let me (David Jansen) know of any problems you encounter installing or running MiniSfinx.

Creating a copy

There exists a program called CopySfinx that can create a tar-file of all the essential Sfinx stuff.

Invoke it by typing CopySfinx linuxsfx.tar (or whatever file name you want). You can then compress this tar file and move it onto a floppy to take it home. You can also supply a name with a .tgz or .tar.z suffix, in which case compression is done automatically.

CopySfinx also has a few options:

What else do I need ?

Of course you need an operational UNIX machine. In the remainder of this document it is assumed your system is a stand-alone Linux system (e.g. your PC at home). You need X11R6 to fully profit from the Sfinx system. X11R5 will do, provided you have the xmessage program. In that case, you will have to recompile ctwm, xsession and xcmap if you want to use these programs (copy the source code separately). This MiniSfinx distribution takes only approximately 2 MB of diskspace.

Installing the Sfinx system

The MiniSfinx system comes with a script called install. You can invoke this directly from floppy (e.g. /pcfs/install) and answer the (few) questions. This will take care of most of the sfinx installation.

Which files to edit to customize my system ?

There are a few steps to take to get the MiniSfinx system to work:
  1. Edit local/syscap . This is the database that describes where all the software resides. It doesn't hurt to have packages defined that are not installed, but you might want to check it anyway.
  2. Edit local/envcap . This is the database of environment variables. Te OSdir entry, which should point to the directory where you have installed Sfinx is now set automatically if you use the install script that comes with the MiniSfinx distribution. Most other vaiables work OK, but your PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH and MANPATH might be different, depending on the Linux distribution you use. Usually, TeX is properly installed already, so you might have to remove part or all of the TeX definitions. Also, check the PRINTER and TAPE variables, if such devices are available.
  3. Many other files in 'local' might need some editing, but most aren't essential for the system.
  4. Maybe you want to change the ownership of the Sfinx system, e.g. create a sfinx account (although the system can reside any where, as long as the OSdir variable is set correctly).

How to install it on my own account ?

That's simple, just invoke /home/sfinx/Install (or whatever path you used for the main sfinx directory). This will copy all the necessary files to your home directory.

What is missing from the full sfinx distribution ?

There is no documentation included, except for the man pages, which are far from complete. If you have enough disk space, make a backup of $OSdir/doc and maybe even $OSdir/public_html .

The TeX macros are not included. They reside in $OSdir/tex .

There are also a lot more icons in $OSdir/icons in the full distribution, but none of those is essential.

David.Jansen@strw.leidenuniv.nl
Last modified: Wed Jan 3 12:22:11 MET 1996