From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Carsten Dominik Subject: Re: Re: [PROPOSAL] Quick and easy installation instructions Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2010 17:01:00 +0200 Message-ID: <11DCEC10-B532-4BAB-B721-3E3D4CBDCAC4@gmail.com> References: <87tylcy6gw.fsf@stats.ox.ac.uk> <87zkv4wo9h.fsf@stats.ox.ac.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v936) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=38685 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Ozsiw-000368-Vx for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Sun, 26 Sep 2010 11:01:08 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Ozsiv-0007ig-Lw for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Sun, 26 Sep 2010 11:01:06 -0400 Received: from mail-ey0-f169.google.com ([209.85.215.169]:57724) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Ozsiv-0007iW-Fn for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Sun, 26 Sep 2010 11:01:05 -0400 Received: by eyh5 with SMTP id 5so1356652eyh.0 for ; Sun, 26 Sep 2010 08:01:03 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <87zkv4wo9h.fsf@stats.ox.ac.uk> List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: Dan Davison Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org, Richard Riley On Sep 26, 2010, at 4:52 PM, Dan Davison wrote: > Hi Richard, > > Richard Riley writes: > >> Dan Davison writes: >> >>> I think that the documentation concerning installation should be >>> made >>> more user-friendly. My impression is that the Org manual makes all >>> this >>> sound much harder than it needs to be, and I suspect that this is an >>> entry-barrier for new Org users. For example, the first thing users >>> encounter in the manual section is an instruction to edit a >>> Makefile. >>> >>> I suggest we provide a "quick and easy installation" section to the >>> manual, that shows people how to start using the latest version of >>> Org-mode without messing about with compilation and installation (I >>> rarely compile and have never "installed" Org-mode). It would also >>> be >>> helpful to include notes on how to find your ".emacs" file. >>> >>> This would involve the following changes to section 1.2 >>> Installation: >>> >>> 1. The first thing it should say would be along the lines of >>> "A reasonably recent version of Org is included in Emacs. Are you >>> sure you need the latest version of Org? If not, skip to the >>> Activation section and start using Org!" >> >> I would not go that way. org moves very very quickly. >> >> I would have it in bold letters "we thoroughly recommend taking the >> latest org release from git and here is how to do it (git pull with a >> label)". Then if and when issues arise they can git pull as and >> when the >> fixes arrive. > > I do understand why you say this, but these are supposed to be easy > instructions; they should not involve usage of any version control > software. > >> I say this because some distros (debian being the prime example) >> can be >> very tardy with including latest versions. > > Yes, I agree. The org-latest.{zip,tgz} are what should be recommended > (with the info caveat) I think what we should recommend here is org.tar.gz and org.zip. There are the latest release, usually no more that 1 or 2 months old and stable. Using the ..-latest files does carry this risk of making a beginner install a bad version. So if we go for beginners... - Carsten