INSTALLATION

    LinkController's installation system is based on that of a normal Perl
    module.

    The module is normally distributed along with several other modules.
    Please install these before LinkController.

    The portability of LinkController to systems other than RedHat Linux is
    likely to be a problem. The scale of that problem will depend on how far
    from RedHat Linux your system is. In the end as I get access to more
    Linux Like systems (e.g. FreeBSD / Hurd etc). I'd like to improve this
    situation, but not at the cost of efficiency and maintainability on
    Linux.

installation from rpm

    The easiest way to install link controller is to have the distribution
    in RPM format. In this case, simply install each of the RPMs with
    @command{rpm -i}. Trying to install just `LinkController' will give a
    list of the required rpm packages.

installation from Perl module

    If your system doesn't run rpm then there isn't yet a pre-packaged
    version (hopefully someone will do a port to Debian's packaging system).

  installation pre-requisites

    Before installing LinkController, you must install Perl and a series of
    related Perl modules. The full list is given in
    `lib/Bundle/LinkController.pm'. You may find that trying to install the
    LinkController bundle works for you (see the documentation of the CPAN
    module e.g. with `man CPAN') but it doesn't work for me. If it does work
    then you are sorted.

    The prerequisites can be downloaded from CPAN. the section on
    "/www.cpan.org/" in the http: manpage

  detailed steps for install

    First you must install Perl and the modules as explained above. Then run
    the following commands.

           Perl Makefile.pl;
           make;
           make test;
           make install;

    The file `check-req.out' should be empty. If it isn't that means that
    you have to install some more Perl modules. Read the file to find out
    which.

    All of the tests should pass. Do make sure that you run them so that you
    know that everything is working properly.

    Please note that you must run `make' before you run `make test' because
    of the configuration of the installation system.

  Choosing a Platform

    Installing this software can be easy or difficult depending on what
    operating system platform you are running on.. In approximate order from
    easiest to most difficult (this is my guess)

    *   RedHat Linux equal or better than 6.0 (see http://www.redhat.com/)

    *   other Linux (see http://www.linux.org/ for example)

    *   SUN-OS with Perl 5.003 or better already

    *   other UNIX Perl 5.003 or better already

    *   UNIX without Perl

    *   WinNT (use cygwin for the best chance)

    *   Macintosh

    *   Other Windows

    With a previous version I had tried the top four. Probably to get the
    system running on Sun-OS will require manually setting up the system
    since the programs for doing the default installation (in the
    @file{default-install}) because that uses various GNU administration
    programs which SunOS probably doesn't emulate accurately.

    You will probably find it easier to just install Linux that to get this
    running on Windows. If you do want to get it running on other operating
    systems and provide clean patches, then I will be supportive and
    helpful, but please note that I think most of the portability problems
    will be with the underlying Perl modules and CDB related stuff.

References

       http://www.redhat.com/
       http://www.linux.org/

