On Sun, 2023-05-14 at 13:31 +0200, Jean Abou Samra wrote: > Le dimanche 14 mai 2023 à 12:15 +0100, David Sumbler a écrit : > > It's a while since I used Lilypond. I have a bit of tweaking I > > want to do to some scores, so thought I should download the latest > > version. In the end, I decided to use v2.24.1, rather than 2.25.4, > > although I have mostly used the "unstable" versions in the past. > > > > Lilypond used to use a global install, and it was the work of a few > > minutes to download and install this on my Linux machines, > > including all the documentation too if one added the -d flag. > > > > I have managed to install Lilypond, and even the docs, a couple of > > times since it changed to a sort of flatpack design. Each time it > > has taken me a long time to get it all working. Today I have spent > > well over an hour messing about, and I have now managed to get > > lilypond installed and also the documentation. > > > > But convert-ly doesn't work: I get a > > "/home/david/lilypond/usr/bin/python3: not found" error. This is > > probably because the convert-ly script I have in my ~/bin/ folder > > needs amending, but I can see myself having to spend another hour > > or two trying to sort out what is going wrong and how to change it. > > > > What seems to be missing is a simple to find and to follow set of > > instructions on how to install Lilypond. I was surprised to see > > that the Learning Manual now encourages users to use a package from > > their distro. This seems to be a change of policy: previously, the > > website discouraged users from doing this, because the repositories > > usually have out of date versions. But perhaps this is the path I > > should go down, simply to save time. > > > > Sorry, this is just a grumble about having to mess about so much to > > get Lilypond functioning. But surely there ought to be some sort > > of instructions on the download site about how to get everything > > installed and working. > > > What does “install” mean to you? > > This is a serious question, not hair splitting. Depending on what you > actually want to do with LilyPond, the way to “install” it can be > vastly different. > > If you just want to run it from the command line, then you don't need > to install it in any way, you can just run > "~/where/you/unpacked/the/archive/bin/lilypond". > > If you want to use it *regularly* from the terminal, or if you want > some tool (e.g., Emacs) to find it as just "lilypond", you can just > prepend the right directory to your PATH by adding this to your shell > startup file (e.g., ~/.bashrc): > > export PATH=/where/you/unpacked/the/archive/bin:$PATH > > and this will make it callable as "lilypond". > > If you want to use it with Frescobaldi, that's in the learning > manual, but I suppose you saw that. > > For the documentation there is no real "installation" process in any > case (OK, except maybe if you want the Info documentation). > > To me, the problem with “there should be a simple way to install > LilyPond” is that “install LilyPond” is not something well-defined at > all. There is also a purely psychological issue that some people > think it's a must to “install” something in some way before being > able to use it. > > There are good reasons why the script that used to be shipped isn't > shipped anymore (for example: it would not work well with having > several versions in parallel).
OK - point taken! After writing my previous moaning message, I decided to see what version of Lilypond I would get if I installed my Linux distro's version (I'm using Ubuntu-Unity 23.04). Rather to my surprise I found that it is v.2.24.1, the latest "stable" version, and the same as I downloaded earlier from the Lilypond download site. I also downloaded the docs. And magically it all seems to work. convert-ly worked straight away, and all is well. No doubt this is why new users are now encouraged to use their distro's version, the opposite advice to what used to be given. So in future I'll probably stick with this policy. Since I tend to install new versions of Ubuntu fairly frequently, my Lilypond versions shouldn't be too out of date. David
