- Mention evalf(2^Pi)-bug, lest we forget about it.

[ginac.git] / INSTALL

diff --git a/INSTALL b/INSTALL
index 656fd7ef89d1ba62bef154f3ce15f734d432986d..ed1c8c50f4f7a767ba00fcc345d74f6f17c9fc5b 100644 (file)
--- a/INSTALL
+++ b/INSTALL
@@ -1,14 +1,19 @@
-Prerequisites
+PREREQUISITES
 =============
 
-GiNaC requires the CLN library by Bruno Haible, available at
-<ftp://ftp.santafe.eu/pub/gnu/> or <ftp://ftp.ilog.fr/pub/Users/haible/gnu/>.
-You will also need a good C++ compiler adhering to the ANSI standard (we 
-used gcc for development so if you have a different compiler you are on 
-your own).
+GiNaC requires the CLN library by Bruno Haible, available from either
+one of the following FTP-sites:
+  * <ftp://ftp.santafe.edu/pub/gnu/>,
+  * <ftp://ftp.ilog.fr/pub/Users/haible/gnu/> or
+  * <ftp://ftpthep.physik.uni-mainz.de/pub/gnu/>.
+You will also need a decent ANSI-compliant C++-compiler.  We use
+`post-EGCS' GCC, i.e GCC >= 2.95 for development so if you have a
+different compiler you are on your own.  Note that you may have to use
+the same compiler you compiled CLN with because of differing
+name-mangling schemes.
 
 
-Installation
+INSTALLATION
 ============
 
 As with any autoconfiguring GNU software, installation is as easy as this:
@@ -17,10 +22,12 @@ As with any autoconfiguring GNU software, installation is as easy as this:
  $ make
  $ make check
 [become root if necessary]
- $ make install
+ # make install
 
 Known to work with:
-  - Linux/x86, EGCS-1.1.2 or GCC 2-95.1/2-95.2
+  - Linux on x86, Alpha and Sparc using GCC 2-95.x.
+Known not to work with:
+  - GCC 2.7.x or earlier because proper exception support is missing there.
 
 The "configure" script can be given a number of options to enable and
 disable various features. For a complete list, type:
@@ -42,21 +49,34 @@ The time the "make" step takes depends heavily on optimization levels.
 Large amounts of memory (>128MB) will be required by the compiler,
 also depending on optimization.  To give you a rough idea of what you
 have to expect the following table may be helpful.  It was measured on
-a P-III/500MHz with "enough" memory:
+an Athlon/800MHz with "enough" memory:
 
 step:         | GCC optimization level:  | comment:
               |  -O0   |  -O1   |  -O2   |
 --------------+--------+--------+--------+-------------------------------
-make          |  ~4m   |  ~6m   |  ~10m  | building shared and static lib
-make check    |  ~2m   |  ~2m   |  ~7m   | mostly due to compilation
+make          |   ~4m  |   ~5m  |   ~6m  | building shared and static lib
+make check    |  ~20m  |  ~11m  |  ~12m  | largely due to compilation
 
 
+COMMON PROBLEMS
+===============
+
 Problems with CLN
-=================
+-----------------
 
-You should use at least CLN V1.0.3, since during the development of
+You should use at least CLN-1.1, since during the development of
 GiNaC various bugs have been discovered and fixed in earlier versions.
-To protect you, the "configure" script checks for a feature that was
-added in V1.0.3 so it won't continue with earlier versions anyhow.
 Please install CLN properly on your system before continuing with
-GiNaC.
+GiNaC.  When using GCC3 as compiler please use at least CLN-1.1.1
+since some parts of GiNaC won't build with CLN-1.1.
+
+Problems with building ginsh
+----------------------------
+
+The most common reason why this doesn't succeed is the absence of
+libreadline and/or the corresponding header files.  Depending on what
+your system/distribution is, you will have to install a package called
+libreadline and maybe libreadline-dev.  If your system's vendor
+doesn't supply such packages, go to <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/readline/>
+and compile it yourself.
+