Bill Hayden released version 0.5.2 of his Cosmoe environment for Linux. The new version fixes a dozen of include file problems during compilation, API and source changes etc. The new version should compile now cleanly on all Linux systems, x86 and PPC. Check out the Cosmoe mailing list if you still are getting problems with compilation.
Cosmoe 0.5.2 Released
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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grrrr….
as a beos refugee i installed gentoo linux (which surprisingly i like alot, unlike mandrake) just to get at this cosmoe. unfortunately, i need to figure out how to install the thing before i get anywhere. i exported the shell variables then got as far as “sudo make install-headers” when im propmptly told “sudo: command not found.”
with v.51 id get to the same part (in that release one is only supposed to run “make install-headers”) and it wouldnt work but at least it would tell me something useful like “nothing to be done for…” over and over…
i know this is my fault, not bills, but can someone tell me what im doing wrong.
Open a terminal on Gentoo and type:
emerge rsync
and then type:
emerge app-admin/sudo
then, retry to build Cosmoe.
I didn’t install 0.5.2 yet but I’m pretty sure you don’t need sudo. Just do it as root and you are set. Sudo is just executing the following command as root (or another user) and asks for the passwort. That’s convenient if you want to do just one line as root without switching users.
And about your question…
“how does one install things in linux (and why is it so hard)”
This has nothing to do with how you install software in GNU/Linux, it’s just that you are trying to compile and install a software in development from the sources, what did you expect.
He obviously expected to open a terminal and simply type: make
as he did in similar situations under BeOS and it worked fine, no matter the complexity of the project. Or, to open BeIDE, load a .prj file, and then click “Run”. 🙂
eugina may speak for me at any time. oh how i miss beos. i have a feeling the best is yet to come, though
i know this isnt a help forum, but i just cant get the hang of this.
results step 2 from INSTALL: after cp’ing some files into /usr/include it tells me “nothing to be done for install-headers” a few times and “no rule to make target install-headers” and so on for every subdirectory…
i know im doing something wrong, but i refuse to feel stupid. this kinda shtuf isn’t exactly intuitive. am i supposed to extract cosmoe into a specific dir or something? i’ve tried a few.
I agree to..
I have tried to compile mozilla from scratch numerous times without success (with different versions).. Sometimes it dies under compilation sometimes when I try to start it.
What I think is remarkable is that I can’t find any good guides on how to compile and run mozilla from source.. Anyone got any tips?
I wrote a small guide on compiling mozilla for my own reference purposes. If you’d like to see it, I’ve posted it <a href=”http://grub.atlantic.net/mozilla.html“>here.
cosmoe is pre-alpha, I recommend you forget about installing it if you’re not a serious developer. Part of the problem is that it’s not an official distro, but a snapshot of his local tree. But more to the point he’s done a lot of goofy things like include libfreetype and put /usr/include in the cflags. In other words, cosmoe is not ready for the BeOS end user type person.
#These are procedures for unpacking, building, and running Cosmoe 0.5.2.
#Assuming you downloaded the tarball to /usr/src …
cd /usr/src
bunzip2 cosmoe-0.5.2.tar.bz2
tar xvf cosmoe-0.5.2.tar
ln -s /usr/src/cosmoe ~/cosmoe
cd /usr/src/cosmoe
source cosmoe_profile.sh
#Unimportant: Note that the README (wrongly?) says COSMOE_APP= instead of COSMOE_BIN=. Also COSMOE_SRC=~/cosmoe vs. COSMOE_SRC=/usr/src/cosmoe.
make install-headers
#Ignore make[?] errors above… only first few “cp -R” statements are important.
make
#An error will occur above about libcosmoe.so, just continue to the next step.
cd /usr/src/cosmoe/libcosmoe
make
make install
cd /usr/src/cosmoe
make
make install
#You must now exit X-Windows. If you have gpm (mouse cursor) in console mode then turn it off with “gpm -k”.
#Now to start Cosmoe…
./cosmoe.sh
#In Cosmoe, press ESC followed by Ctrl-c to exit.
#PS. Peter Schultz is right. It’s really meant for developers at the moment.
Thanks for that one Pahtz
OK, here’s the results of my efforts on Mandrake 8.2/PPC:
The gcc that comes with Mandrake 8.2 cannot parse the assembly code in the ISA code. However, as my iBook doesn’t have any ISA hardware, I removed that assembly code.
Next up: It requires quite a few libs Mandrake did not install on my system. Like libpng, libjpg or libz. Hm. Maybe I should burn that second Mandrake install CD and look for the files – or just install Debian again. Debian is harder to get running on the iBook (esp if you want XFree86 with that), but I could do “apt-get install libpng” on it…
thanks pahtz, it almost worked!!! i’m goig to heed mr. schultz advice and avoid cosmoe for a few more releases… it actually locked up my system to the point where ctrl-alt-del didnt reboot it… first time i’ve seen that on gentoo.
ppc,
you are a bit off topic, but I’m a perenial linux newbie, who started on mandrake post-beos and let me say one thing: i hated it. it was slow and never worked quite right (it was 8.0). This year, I tried gentoo, which supposedly is not for newbies, and not only did the AWESOME docs on gentoo.org breeze me right through the install, but i learned a bunch. the make-it-from-scratch tarball is only 16 megs (but will tie up your computer for a considerable amount as you are making everything from scratch and dling off the gentoo portage tree). I’ve heard that gentoo is the best thing out for PPC, and it has instructions for installing pcmcia devices.
I think your display setting is the problem. I’ve experience that myself before on 0.5 but I get advise from Bill to change my framebuffer setting. I change the number to VGA=791 and it work for me.
I heard Gentoo was a great distribution and I know that Mandrake is not the best distro for developers. I had both Debian and Darwin setup on that iBook at some point in time (erased in the meantime, I didn’t see the point as I have OS X on it), so it’s definately not a lack of skills or knowledge on my side…
However, it’s a lack of time (I don’t want to spend a whole day installing an OS) and the lack of will. I’ve been a computer enthousiast for over 10 years now, and I’m getting tired of it. I’m getting to a point where I select “standard install” and don’t bother to change the system default colors – sometimes I just want to read my email and surf the web.
As long as Cosmoe needs the user to be root, it’s not usable… Being root isn’t always safe.
As long as Cosmoe needs the user to be root, it’s not usable… Being root isn’t always safe.
Look at the version number. It is a developers release. Nothing more. (BTW, I haven’t tried Cosmoe yet)
Did anyone get this compiled with GCC 2.95.4? I’m using Deb 3.0/PPC with gcc 2.95.4, and it dies on compiling vesadrv.cpp, parse error in isa_io.h, which is after an assembly segment.
emey,
After serious consideration i decided: it could be a framebuffer problem.
then again, i just learned how to change my resolution so mabey it doesn’t matter what i think.
I’m confident enough to swim around in fstab or xf86config, but i wouldnt know where to start with that one…
I’m not fully understand your message but if you mean how to change the framebuffer setting here it is;
I am using grub, if you also, look for /boot/grub/menu.lst. Edit the file for your intended partition to look roughly like this;
title Redhat
kernel (hd0,6)/boot/vmlinuz vga=791 root=/dev/hda7
the bolded word is what I previously mean.
if you use lilo, edit /etc/lilo.conf, change the appropriate item
image = /boot/peanut
vga=791
root = /dev/hda8
label = Peanut
read-only
then run lilo before reboot.
I just commented out all the stuff in isa_io.h, and then it compiled fine (make sure you have libpng-dev and libjpg-dev installed). However, when starting Cosmoe on the iBook2 I get a black screen. Maybe it needs those lines, despite the fact that the iBook has no ISA hardware?
Can I use Cosmoe on one virtual terminal and run X on another (at the same time)?
Yes Stew, when compiling on PPC you really do need that assembly code in isa_io.h. It’s a bit of a misnomer. Remove the trailing ); on the last line of the PPC code to get it to compile, or just wait for 0.5.3 which contains the fix.
I tried commenting out the trailing ); but to no avail. If I do that, I get a “parse error before `}'” which occurs on the next line.
unforunately changing the line in menu.lst to contain vga=791 prevents me from booting.
I’ll wait a couple of releases
OK, this time gcc 3.0.4 on Woody. With removing the whole function body in isa_io.h (just leaving a stub) it compiles fine, but when running it I still get a black screen. The *.out files seem OK, however. Misconfiguration of the framebuffer? I don’t know, XFree86 runs fine on it. Hm.