Notice: Until recently, I preferred to download "factory-made"
executables in RPM format (something like ZIP in MS Windows world).
After getting a RPM package, a click on it activates the program
that unpack and install its content. Well, it is great whenever
your RPM has been "manufactured" for the very similar distribution
of Linux you have. If not ...
Well, I have already had the package
xfbb-7.04-2.i386.rpm (07 August 2001), that was
running OK under RH 6.2 distro. And not only that. Its
"packager", Jose HI8GN, has explained that this package
was actually compiled and linked with utilities that came
with RH 6.2 - so under that distribution should be no
problems at all.
The other day, I finally decided to abandon that 4-5 year
old version of X11 LinFBB application that I knew it would
not run under something newer than RH 6.2 distro. In short,
I decided to stay with daemon LinFBB's only, so it was the
right time to upgrade the Linux system itself. Another handy
installation that I had, was RH 7.1 and I used it. After
finishing that task, I rushed to re-install the RPM package
above, but it just didn't want to run.
I had no choice but to browse fbb web sites in order to find
a RPM package that would fit RH 7.1 distribution. Unfortunately,
it looked that there were no LinFBB precompiled RPMs for 7.1
version of RedHat. The only solution was to try with tarballs.
So, what I have downloaded from
www.f6fbb.org/versions.html, was xd704h-src.tgz
archive.
So far - so good. Well, folks, I am not very good in "deepest"
secrets of Linux, so I was not sure where might be the best
location to unpack the archive. According a readme
file, it should be "fbbsrc" directory, so I considered that
/usr/src would be the best place to copy archive's
fbbsrc.704h directory.
fbbsrc.704h directory has been made of 12 files and 7
subdirectories, one of which is src subdirectory. As
I said, the readme suggests a user to "goto fbbsrc/src"
directory, and I concluded that /usr/src/fbbsrc.704h/src
was the right place.
The readme also suggests to "update the variables" at
the beginning of Makefile files, but I did not do that
because I was not sure what should be replaced there. I have
just left the file(s) intact.
The next task was to run make command from the shell
and it took half a minute to be finished. The result were few new
xfbb executable files that I quickly moved to
/usr/sbin directory. BTW, some people rather suggest to run
make install, in order to avoid multiple copying of
compiled executables, but I found that way as not functional.
Soon after, I tried to activate LinFBB's daemon and
it seemed to work without visible difficulties (using a temporary home
LAN with a laptop, I also started fbbW, a LinFBB Windows client.
It recognized the daemon in a second and I've only
noticed that there was no Protus password utility running).
According the readme, the next task should be to "compile
the xfbbC client". That operation is to be performed from a place
called "fbbsrc/client" but the only directory available under
/usr/src/fbbsrc.704h/src was X11 subdir.
After clicking on its icon, I recognized the second one file
with a name Makefile (they have mentioned "updating"
of both Makefile files, so I hoped to reach the proper
place once again, regardless of two unknown paths). Besides that,
they have suggested to use "at least the version 2.1.37b of
ax25-utils" and I found not to have something like that
installed (case they mean of a suit of libax25, ax25apps
and ax25tool - than it is OK). Anyway, one more time I activated
make command from the shell and the result was in
getting xfbbC executable.
As usual, xfbbC client is invoked from within an
xterm (or similar) window and it seemed that it was
also fully functional. So far - so good.
The next issue is to "compile the xfbbX client", but this time
a user is requested to have a version of Motif installed. Well,
what I knew was that I had no Motif in the box, but a couple of Lesstif
RPM packages were somewhere around. Anyway, I installed them
with --force and --nodeps options to avoid
several dependency obstacles. In sum, Lestiff has come
to its place on the disk.
This time, I did make some "updates" related to Makefile
paths and tried to run make command from the shell (for
the 3rd time now). Seems that I got no answer, because there appeared
neither xfbbX nor xfbbX_cl new executable files.
In order to "solve" that issue, I just applied the executables
from the earlier version I have backup-ed on the system.
Finally, I managed to activate xfbbX client without
problems, although I knew it was not an updated version (compared
to the daemon itself). Regardless of that fact, a GUI client
works properly.
As I just mentioned, I noticed that the first console connections
were without familiar {PROTUS-4.1b7} designation. So, I had
to check and double-check all the paths and system directories,
described in the Protus section of this mini-HOWTO. At the first
sight, it looked to me that everything was fine, but the utility
was not likely to start. Finally, I copied its main executable
into the yet another system location: /usr/lib/fbb/filter,
re-started the system and Protus returned back to its function.
What I have to do in the future, is to check if the procedure
described in this section was the right one, although most of the
BBS's main features seem to be active - like they were with RH 6.2
distribution and mentioned LinFBB packages in RPM format.
