Ian Munro wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Slightly off topic at the moment but can anyone help me install free
>; Pascal in Gnome ? I have downloaded a VM of Gnome 2.18 from here
>; (http://www.gnome.org/start/2.18/) and grabbed a copy of free Pascal for
> Intel/I386 Linux (fpc-2.0.4.i386-linux.tar
>; <ftp://ftp.freepascal.org/pub/fpc/dist/i386-linux-2.0.4/fpc-2.0.4.i386-l
> inux.tar> ). It says that I can install it once expanded using the
> command "sh install.sh". This is the first time I've used Linux so I had
> a bit of fun getting as far as I have. I run the install.sh in a
> terminal window and it started asking me questions like use the
> extension /user and some other unfriendly stuff. Can anyone give me some
>; advice as I'm a Windows man and am not getting too far with this. Once I
> get this installed I want to try to get some of my old Delphi
> applications running under Linux. I'll probably then post loads of
> questions on how to get SDL installed :o(
>
First of all, if you never used Linux, why are you trying to use GNOME
inside a virtual machine ? More to the point, why are you trying to
download GNOME yourself ?
I you want the simplest way to run Linux and FreePascal, I suggest you
download Ubuntu. It comes with LiveCD, so you can run it without
installing (and later use this CD to install, if you decide it's
worthy). Once you run Ubuntu (from LiveCD session, or from a "real"
installation on your hard disk), you can install FreePascal simply by
using "Synaptic package manager" and telling it to install various
packages like "fp-compiler", "fp-units-rtl" etc. (usually a search for
all packages starting with "fp-" is what you will want). This way you
will not have to manually run any install.sh script and you will not be
asked any questions difficult to you.
So, above was my advice to a novice Linux user. Basically, get Ubuntu,
it's quite friendly, and then everything should be easier, including
installation of FreePascal.
Now, if you're really sure you don't want to follow my advice above, the
question that you mention "Install prefix (/usr or /usr/local) [default
answer] :" is asking in what path should FreePascal be installed. Unix
paths are separated by "/" (when Windows paths are separated by ""),
and Unix paths never start with a disk name (there's no "c:" equivalent
in Unix paths --- on Unix, all disks are mounted, so all absolute paths
start with "/" character).
/usr and /usr/local and just two common choices where people like to
install FreePascal. Installing into them will make FreePascal usable to
any user on your system, but then you have to install as root (normal
users don't have permissions to install into /usr or /usr/local).
If you want to install as a normal (i.e. non-root) user, you can install
into directory like /home/my_user_name/fpc-2.0.4 (in fact, that should
be the default answer (in brackets []) if you run install.sh as normal
user). Under Unix, directory "/home/my_user_name/" is somewhat analogous
to "c:Documents And Settingsmy_user_name" on Windows --- this a
directory that belongs to a specific user, and you have all permissions
there.
If you have any more questions, please ask.
Some instructions about installing JEDI-SDL for FPC are on
[http://wiki.freepascal.org/FPC_and_SDL].
Michalis
