From owner-freebsd-questions  Sun Mar  7 19:36:39 1999
Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Received: from gaia.euronet.nl (gaia.euronet.nl [194.134.0.10])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 807BB14BF6
	for <questions@FreeBSD.ORG>; Sun,  7 Mar 1999 19:36:37 -0800 (PST)
	(envelope-from roelof@eboa.com)
Received: from charon.eboa.com (n669.telekabel.euronet.nl [194.134.130.170])
	by gaia.euronet.nl (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id EAA04210;
	Mon, 8 Mar 1999 04:36:18 +0100 (MET)
From: roelof@eboa.com
Received: from eboa.com (roelof [10.0.0.2])
	by charon.eboa.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id EAA10427;
	Mon, 8 Mar 1999 04:36:25 +0100
Message-ID: <36E34607.9DF90C53@eboa.com>
Date: Mon, 08 Mar 1999 04:37:43 +0100
Reply-To: roelof@eboa.com
Organization: eboa - engineering buro Office Automation
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (WinNT; I)
X-Accept-Language: en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: cvsup-bugs@polstra.com
Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: CVSup: a newbie's tale.
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Precedence: bulk
X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG

 I was adviced to run CVSup, so I did. A part of this process was reading
the (on-line) handbook. Though often clear enough I found it kept schtumm
on one seemingly little detail. After describing what to do with the
parameters in some supfile and explaining what they do, it jumped straight
into '18.3.3.4 Running CVSUp'. With the following optimistic words even:
'You are now ready to try an update.'. Like 'L I am!

Where is one supposed to put that [...] supfile? No word is wasted on such
a trivial detail. It tells you where to find the example supfile. Great. 
But not where the final edition is supposed to reside.

Aarrgghh.

So we go on. First I gave the 'cvsup supfile' as stated, having edited
the example source file. Why not? I was deemed ready and if it wasn't
supposed to reside in the examples directory then surely it would complain
and tell me where it had looked for the file. Right? Wrong.

It complained allright. Only with the not so informative message that
the supfile could not be found. Fine, have it your way. So I linked it
into /usr/local/etc/cvsup, went to /root, and re-tried. Alas. Same
uninformative message. Not to be outsmarted by a mere unwilling program
I popd back to /usr/local/etc/cvsup and restated my wishes. Succes.

Of course, after I forced it I remembered to check the man page. Wouldn't
have made any difference since though it talks about /usr/local/etc/cvsup
as its 'base' that clearly does not hold for configuration files.

Perhaps it would be nice to change:

<<You are now ready to try an update. The command line for doing this is 
quite simple:

  cvsup supfile

where "supfile" is of course the name of the supfile you have just created.>>

from "the name of" to "the full pathname of" ?

The next thing is about: "Assuming you are running under X11, cvsup 
will display a GUI window with some buttons to do the usual things. 
Press the "go" button, and watch it run."

In short, no it won't. I even got up and actually walked to the console
which ran X to execute it. So anctious was I to see that promised GUI
window come up. Might as well have fired it up in the telnets I was
running. Could've saved myself the trip. All 10 paces of it.

Then there is: "Having just created your configuration file, and having 
never used this program before, that might understandably make you 
nervous.". You have no idea. Actually, telling us the secret location
of the config files would help!

So we come to: 

<<If you are not running X11 or if you just do not like GUIs, you should 
add a couple of options to the command line when you run cvsup:

  cvsup -g -L 2 supfile

The "-g" tells cvsup not to use its GUI. This is automatic if you are not 
running X11, but otherwise you have to specify it.>>

Given the 'understandably nervous' quote above, does this mean I made
some terrible error? I mean it all looked good, but... there was no
promised GUI window to be detected. Not only do I feel cheeted, my
anxiety reaches monumental proportions.

Warranted due to:

<<The "-L 2" tells cvsup to print out the details of all the file updates 
it is doing. There are three levels of verbosity, from "-L 0" to "-L 2". 
The default is 0, which means total silence except for error messages.>>

There's no telling what informative error messages I might've missed.

Last, but not least, we get to the topic of ports. Now imagine if you
would your average nervous newbie. Having never done this before one
reads the handbook with bated breath in the hope of gaining, if not
wisdom, at least heightened awareness of the pitfalls involved. Like,
oh, say, will it mean downloading and thus storing all sources. I.e.
of every available port?

As it turned out, it doesn't. Which is nice since I only had a mere GB
left on the /usr device. Perhaps it would be an idea to inform the
audience of the scope of what one's about to attempt?

Next step will be the making of a world. But since there's only so much
my nerves can stand I think I'll leave that task to the morrow.

Roelof

PS this is not intended as negative criticism but as a way to inform
the maintainers of the various appreciated tidbits of my experiences
when I first tried said tidbits. Something you can only do once.


To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message