Hi everybody, With your help, I have finally gotten FlightGear running. As I expected, it is incredibly cool and something I hope to contribute to in the time ahead. From the vantage point of a newbie FlightGear user who has just completed installation, I have several ideas (some general and some specific) about how I think we could drastically ease the new user's installation experience. What was most striking to me about virtually all of the problems that I encountered in my installation was this: They were generally extremely trivial issues that could have easily been averted with either a very slight hint in the documentation or a very slight change to the code.
OK, here are my key initial ideas/suggestions for improvement: 1. We should immediately attempt to fix all known errors or inaccuracies in the FlightGear installation documentation. More people are wasting more hours repeatedly falling into the same traps, searching for hours on Google or the (unsearchable) mailing list archives for the answers, and asking the same questions to this mailing list than should be doing so. This is very non-optimal from the following two standpoints: a. It needlessly frustrates and discourages new users and prevents the FlightGear user base from quickly growing (which will ultimately yield the greatest improvement in FlightGear). b. It is an unfortunate negative drain on developer attention and resources (to continually be aiding newbies with the same issues). 2. I did not download a CVS snapshot for my installation (nor do I think I should have done so). I downloaded the gzipped tarballs from FTP. Unless I do not understand properly how these FTP source files are created or managed (vis a vis CVS), I am of the (very firm) opinion that these FTP source files should definitely compile without issues. i.e., A new user using a reasonably up-to-date gcc compiler (e.g. 3.2) who properly downloads and installs these source files should have a clean compile. 3. As has been suggested recently by others, the list of *necessary* (basic) configure/compilation options should be very clearly specified for new users. Advanced configure/compilation options should be referenced as such elsewhere. (Note: New users do NOT necessarily know offhand what configure/compilation options are required to get basic functionality. We need to tell them what is *required* to get FlightGear working.) Well, those are my basic points. If we could improve in just those respects, new users should have their installation experience improved by about 90%, imo. The following are just a few examples of each of the above, to help illustrate what I was referring to: 1. Example Documentation Issue: I experienced the classic "Metakit-2.4.3 or later" (libmk4.so.0) error. I spent hours and hours and hours trying to figure this one out. I never should have spent *any* time figuring that one out, however, because: a. It is a very well known issue. b. It is very easy to avoid (if one knows the source of this issue). Here's how to avoid this issue in the future (for all users!): The installation documentation (not the FAQ!) should very clearly state: "With the default installation, libmk4.so.0 is installed into /usr/local/lib. You need to ensure that that path is listed in /etc/ld.so.conf, then run 'ldconfig' as root." NOTE: This is listed in the FAQ *but in the wrong section!* That is why new users so often fail to see it (even when they consult the FAQ)! It is listed in Section 5.1 under Running FlightGear. But newbies encounter this issue during configuring and compiling! (If it were listed in Section 3 (Configuring) or Section 4 (Compiling), new users would be far more likely to see that issue. But with such a commonly occurring issue, I will strongly argue that it should be listed in the installation documentation itself.) 2. Example Compilation Errors (using gzipped tarballs from FTP): I encountered three code/compilation errors during installation. I don't think I should have encountered any, assuming a reasonable compiler and a normal/recommended set of compilation options. a. atis.cxx code error b. main.cxx code error c. options.cxx code error 3. Example Configure/Compilation Option Errors: David Luff writes: "Your configure arguments don't make sense though: new-environment and weathercm are alternatives - you only want to be compiling with one of them." I was apparently being redundant in attempting to compile the second and third options shown below from the installation documentation. But how would I know that those are redundant? (It is not at all clear offhand that they necessarily are.) "configure knows about numerous options, with the more relevant ones to be specified via switches as: --with-network-olk: Include Oliver Delise's multi-pilot networking support, --with-new-environment: Include new experimental environment subsystem, --with-weathercm: Use WeatherCM instead of FGEnvironment, --with-plib=PREFIX: Specify the prefix path to PLIB, --with-metakit=PREFIX: Specify the prefix path to Metakit, --with-simgear=PREFIX: Specify the prefix path to SimGear, --prefix=/XXX: Install FlightGear in the directory XXX. --disable-jsbsim: Disable JSBSimm FDM (in case of trouble compiling it). --disable-yasim: Disable YASim FDM (in case of trouble compiling it). --disable-larcsim: Disable LaRCsim FDM (in case of trouble compiling it). --disable-uiuc: Disable UIUC FDM (in case of trouble compiling it)." Well, those are key comments... Sending this much for now... Benjamin Solosy Issaquah, Washington _______________________________________________ Flightgear-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-users
