[MiNT] Sparemint announcement

[Frank Naumann <fnaumann@prinz-atm.CS.Uni-Magdeburg.De>]

Hi,

most of you have probably heard about a secret thing called 
Sparemint that has been worked on during the past couple of
months.  The time has come to "reveal" the secret. ;-)

Most of us have their system still based on the KGMD MiNT
distribution which had been created by Frank "Knarf" Bartels
a couple of years ago.  KGMD had been designed to allow 
updates but such updates have never seen the light of day. 
As a consequence users were forced to grab updates to all 
packages from here, there and everywhere which was a
time-consuming and sometimes frustrating task.

Sparemint is an approach to end this unsatisfying situation.
Sparemint is *not* (yet) a replacement for KGMD because in
order to benefit from it you already need a working MiNT
environment (at least a minimal one, maybe bash alone 
will already do).

Sparemint is rather a software archive.  It is completely based
on rpm - the Redhat Package Manager.  This rpm is a powerful
tool used for example by Redhat and SuSe Co. for their distributions
of MiNT clones mainly on intel platforms.
;-)

What can you expect?  We have currently prepared about 70 different
software packages ready for download, all of them recent versions,
most of them containing the latest one.  The archive is http
browsable, packages are very easy to install, update and manage
if, yes, *iff* you prepare yourself a little bit for it.

The archive is currently hosted (hopefully be mirrored soon) on

   http://www.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/~fnaumann/sparemint/
	
Browse the site a little, decide whether you are interested and
then go back to the top page and follow the link "General
Information" there.  Please don't read the files you will find
there, download them and read them offline twice!  Next step
is to install rpm, the program that everything depends on.  
If you have read the General Information carefully you will
know where you find rpm for MiNT.  Take your time to install
it and please, please read the docs carefully.  You should 
really consider one night until you've got everything going
and fully understand it.  

If you think it is a nuisance that you have to read all that
stuff, you are right, it is.  But compare the time you need
for reading now with the time for reading the installation
instructions for all the software you have installed on your
machine.  Once you have successfully installed rpm installing
new software (including rpm itself by the way) is a matter
of one simple command like:

	rpm -ivh cvs-1.10.5-3.m68kmint.rpm

You will see a growing row of hashes ('#') and that's it, you
have installed latest version of cvs without reading any
documentation.  Uninstalling or updating is equally simple.
You will also be able to get a list of files that belong to
the cvs package, other useful information about the software,
and once you have installed more and more Sparemint packages
you will also like the possibility to let rpm tell you to 
which package a particular file on your system that you cannot
identify belongs or let rpm check if the installation of
a software package is still intact (i. e. no files are missing
or damaged).

One favor we ask you (the MiNT community) for: Sparemint is 
really easy to handle once you have grown accustomed with it
(especially with rpm).  But we are well aware that in the 
beginning you will often encounter problems.  First step
is RTFM (as usual).  If you cannot find a solution for your
problem, then ask.  But it is probably wise to ask here on
the list instead of bombing Frank and me (Guido) with 
questions until we have no time to answer them.  And once
you've got things going, please share your knowledge with
the rest that is not yet as far as you are.  Besides, the
concept of Sparemint is (intentionally) very similar to
that of Redhat Linux.  Linux users here or among the people
you know will probably be able to answer you some questions
concerning rpm too.

Hm, what else should I say?  Just have a try and visit the
Sparemint site.  And please have your credit-card at hand.
;-))
Just kidding.  No, all software you can get on the Sparemint
site is free, no share/fair/trial/demo/payware.

Have fun!

Guido and Frank

P.S.: One note, especially for U. S. users:  Sparemint possibly
violates export restrictions in some countries of the world.  This
is not intentional but on the other hand we just don't care. ;-)
However, although all Sparemin software is free, it may be 
illegal to redistribute, export or even use some packages in
your country.  One example is currently mutt.

P.P.S.: If you have read the docs you will already know that the
first packages you have to install will be "bash" and then 
"info" (virtually all other packages depend on them).  There is
a little problem with bash as there are two conflicting versions
available: "bash" and "bash-mbaserel".  If you have a 030 processor
(e. g. TT) you can safely install "bash-mbaserel" which will
save you some memory when running the shell.  On other machines
(Milan, Hades, Afterburner, ...) you have to install "bash" instead
because "bash-mbaserel" currently crashes on processors >030.
No idea why.