scratch team mailing list archive

[Amos Blanton <amos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi André,

Thanks for writing. We agree - an rpm would be great! A helpful member of
the community started work on this a while ago, but hasn't checked in their
code quite yet. Hopefully this will be possible soon. If you know of others
who'd like to help make an RPM, please invite them. The code is available
via links here:

http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Linux_Installer

We made the tarball publically available in hopes that people with
experience would step forward and help make an RPM. But perhaps we should
include instructions on how to compile in the meantime. Here's a first draft
of a readme file - please recommend any changes, and then I'll add it to the
tarball.

README.txt

Scratch is written in Squeak, and runs on a Squeak virtual machine, included
in the tarball as  "scratch_squeak_vm." For more information about squeak,
see: http://www.squeak.org/

Since Scratch runs as an image on an interpreter, all that needs to be
compiled are the necessary plugins, which can be done using the included
makefile. The rest of the installation involves copying files to their
correct locations:

/usr/lib/scratch - the Scratch.image file, and the squeak virtual machine
("scratch_squeak_vm.")
/usr/lib/scratch/Plugins - plugins necessary for Scratch to run properly

The following directories must be found in these locations, because
references to them are hard-coded within the Scratch.image file:
/usr/share/scratch/Help - the help screen images, and the help html files.
/usr/share/scratch/locale - translation .po files
/usr/share/scratch/Media - image and sound files bundled with Scratch
/usr/share/scratch/Projects - sample projects bundled with Scratch

The "scratch" startup script shows how to execute the vm, and the necessary
command line switches to indicate where the plugins can be found, and which
sound plugin should be used. The included script uses the pulseaudio sound
plugin by defauilt, but plugins are also available for alsa and oss - simply
change the vm's command line switches to try different ones. Here's the
script:

/usr/bin/scratch_squeak_vm \
-plugins /usr/lib/scratch/Plugins \
-vm-sound-pulse \
/usr/lib/scratch/Scratch.image "${@}"

Scratch project files end in .sb, so you may want to register that filetype
on your system. See the source code for the package at:
https://www.assembla.com/spaces/scratchonlinux/trac_subversion_tool  for
more info.

##end

Would this information constitute a decent readme, or would you recommend
changes / additional info?

-Amos


On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 9:10 AM, andré <andre99b@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

> It would be nice if you had an RPM compiled package for Linux, for the
> Fedora/Suse/Mandriva distros (mine being Mandriva).  Or at least a generic
> *.tar.gz compiled package.
> Many on non-Debian/Ubuntu Linux don't have the skills or inclination to
> compile from source.
> (Especially on more user-friendly distros like Mandriva.)
>
> I've downloaded the scratch_1.4.0.1.tar.gz source package from the Linux
> page.
> It doesn't seem to include compile instructions.
> (I would have expected that documented in a readme file.)
> Please let me know if I should use something other than "make".
>
> By the way, I notice that there are 2 translations files for french, fr.po
> and and fr_CA.po.
> On reviewing the files, I see that none of the phrases to be translated
> touch the few differences between France and Canada (which are primarily
> accent).
> (The best online reference for french technical terms is based in Canada.)
> For most of the differences between the 2 files, one (if not both) are
> clearly in error; the others generally depend on the context (which can only
> be determined by running the software).
> I would like to correct the translations (producing identical files), after
> compiling the program and verifying the contexts.
> Also I would be interested in translating the help files (into french).
>
> Again, please let me know if I should use something other than "make" to
> compile scratch.
>
> André
>
>


-- 
_____
Amos