[120] in Release_7.7_team
Re: Release Notes draft
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (yandros@MIT.EDU)
Fri Jul 8 00:39:27 1994
From: yandros@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 00:39:07 +0500
To: cfields@MIT.EDU
Cc: kcunning@MIT.EDU, release-77@MIT.EDU, testers@MIT.EDU, bert@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <9407080319.AA01911@perilous.MIT.EDU> (cfields@MIT.EDU)
* The previously unavailable "server" parts of the Athena software
(ftpd, klogind, rkinitd, mkserv, etc.) have finally been ported and
incorporated in the release, making Solaris more desirable as a
private Athenized workstation.
I would also mention access_on and access_off specifically, and
possibly mention that configuration of private solaris machines is
affected.
> * The X server used on the Suns is now a real X11R5 server rather than
> an Open Windows one.
I don't know where this information came from, but it's false. It is
the stock OpenWindows server that comes with Solaris 2.3. Newer and
hopefully better... It may be considered a "real X11R5 server" itself
although it provides other functionality as well.
Perhaps this is confusion about the new OpenWindows server being
X11R5-based rather than NeWS based? I'm not sure what needs to be
mentioned about this, if anything...
if you use a
~/.Xresources or ~/.app-defaults file
What's a ~/.app-defaults file? Just something that I've never heard
of?
The moira clients (moira, listmaint, mailmaint, and blanche) were
moved to the /afs/athena/system/moira directory. These clients are
server dependent and so need to be reviewed as the Moira servers
change, which may not coincide with the Athena release cycle.
(Having these programs in the special "system" directory -- which is
not tied to the release cycle -- allows them to be changed as
needed.) Symbolic links were left in the old locations of these
clients to make this change transparent to users.
Do you really want to use the afs path instead of `the moira locker'?
All the MH electronic mail command line clients (e.g., inc, comp, send, etc.)
were upgraded from MH 6.6 to 6.8 on all platforms. (This also indirectly
affects the X Windows MH client, xmh). [NOT SURE WHAT THE CHANGES ARE.]
..and the emacs client mh-rmail. This probably effects *all* MH
clients, since a `happy, productive MH citizen' will run those
programs rather than inlining the functionality. For example, it
affects exmh, (which has been running the test MH 6.8 for a while
anyway).
** New dsmail server
The dsmail server (for automatically posting e-mail messages to a discuss
meeting) has been updated with the ability to:
Nit: dsmail is a client, not a server. Probably best to omit the
world `server' altogether.
Note that while version 18.59 of Emacs is not the latest available version
(version 19 is already available in the emacs19 locker), it *is* the most
advanced version that is not significantly different from the versions of
Emacs previously running on Athena. In other words, it is the latest version
that does not involve significant user interface differences.
I'd say `available for testing' about emacs19, and it has more than
just user interface differences.
* Style Files Updated -- Most of the TeX style files on Athena were
*very* old (newer styles have been made available by SIPB in their
tex-contrib directory, but not all users were aware of them). The
style files on Athena have been completely revised to include the
latest versions, including major additions (e.g., AMSLaTeX, useful
for typesetting scientific/mathematical documents, etc.)
The mention of the sipb locker isn't quite right. You want something
closer to this:
``..in the sipb, consult, and tex-contrib lockers, but not ..''
In particular, tex-contrib isn't maintained by sipb, and sipb's style
files are in /mit/sipb/lib/tex/foo, not tex-contrib. Probably the
best thing to say about this is that users will want to use the newer
athena files rather than the sipb/consult/tex-contrib ones they might
now be using.
* Style Files Moved -- In addition to adding new styles, the new
release reorganizes the styles, placing them in new locations that
make more sense. This might cause you to fail to find a style you
have been using before. Now, you *must* have either of the
following entries in your TEXINPUTS environmental variable to access
the style files when you run TeX or LaTeX:
/usr/athena/lib/tex/macros// (note the double slash), or
: (a colon on a line by itself)
These two methods mean different things, and I guess I should try to
explain:
o The new tex has the ability to search subdirectories.
/usr/athena/lib/tex/macros// tells the new tex to look in the
subdirs of /usr/athena/lib/tex/macros as well as just the top level.
o The TEXINPUTS variable is a path list of colon-seperated directories
to search. For example:
setenv TEXINPUTS .:/mit/sipb/lib/tex/macros/:/usr/athena/lib/tex/macros
this tells tex to look first in the current dir, then in
/mit/sipb/lib/tex/macros, and finally in /usr/athena/lib/tex/macros.
There's a special meaning to a blank path entry though, like this:
setenv TEXINPUTS .:/mit/sipb/lib/tex/macros/:
Notice the trailing `:'. This gives us 3 entries in that path: `.',
`/mit/sipb/lib/tex/macros/', and `' (blank entry). The blank entry
is now a special shortcut for saying ``the default path compiled
into tex when bert configured it'' (ok, it doesn't explicitly
mention bert by name :-).
I suggest that you want to mention both but suggest the second (and
note that the colon doesn't need to be by itself!).
I'm CC'ing this directly to bert so he can sanity-check my comments.
If I got anything glaringly wrong I'm sure he'll let me know. :-)
* Support has been added for customizing the mapping of Andrew and X11
fonts to troff fonts. See atk/text/PrintFontMap.* for examples.
Well, *I* know where this is, but I doubt many other people do.
There are a few other things that I'm not sure about, but I'm sure
they'll come out in the wash.
chad
