🚀 go-pugleaf

There are some irritating problems with the installation of ISODE 6.8 that
were reported as bugs in release 6.7.  I'm reporting them again now and
offering my experiences for what they're worth.  The problems occurred
under "4.4BSD", 4.3BSD, and Ultrix 3.1, but not Sun OS 4.1.

Since at least 6.7, the inst-all target tries to make the directories
that you defined in CONFIG.make.  It does it using commands of the form

   echo 'if test ! -d /usr/lib; then mkdir /usr/lib; fi' | sh -ve

There are two purely technical problems with this.  First, the -e option
causes the same problem that I assume the use of echo was meant to avoid,
which is to prevent the "error" return of the test from killing make's
shell, and in turn the make itself.  Even if you remove the -e, the lack
of an "else true;" clause causes the last command status returned by the
"sh" on an unsuccessful test to be the status of that test command, and
this kills the make also.

Other problems associated with establishing these directories are that

(a) only the "leaf" directories are made -- it's just as much work by
hand for me to make sure that the immediate parents exist as it is to
make sure the "leaves" exist, so this "labor-saving" is error prone
and became an annoying waste of time for me; and

(b) the "man" directory is made, but not the man{1,5,8} subdirectories,
so the man pages didn't get installed correctly.

This isn't a major problem, but when a big complicated makefile falls on
its face while taking its first step, it shakes your confidence in the
rest of the release.  I ended up not installing 6.7 for that reason.


	John A. Kunze
	Information Systems and Technology
	293 Evans Hall
	Berkeley, CA  94720

	415-642-1530
	jak@violet.berkeley.edu