Re: [Orgmode] Re: [PROPOSAL] Quick and easy installation instructions

[Carsten Dominik]

On Sep 26, 2010, at 4:52 PM, Dan Davison wrote:

> Hi Richard,
>
> Richard Riley <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > Dan Davison <address@hidden> writes:
> >
> > > I think that the documentation concerning installation should be  
> > > made
> > > more user-friendly. My impression is that the Org manual makes all  
> > > this
> > > sound much harder than it needs to be, and I suspect that this is an
> > > entry-barrier for new Org users. For example, the first thing users
> > > encounter in the manual section is an instruction to edit a  
> > > Makefile.
> > >
> > > I suggest we provide a "quick and easy installation" section to the
> > > manual, that shows people how to start using the latest version of
> > > Org-mode without messing about with compilation and installation (I
> > > rarely compile and have never "installed" Org-mode). It would also  
> > > be
> > > helpful to include notes on how to find your ".emacs" file.
> > >
> > > This would involve the following changes to section 1.2  
> > > Installation:
> > >
> > > 1. The first thing it should say would be along the lines of
> > >   "A reasonably recent version of Org is included in Emacs. Are you
> > >   sure you need the latest version of Org?  If not, skip to the
> > >   Activation section and start using Org!"
> >
> > I would not go that way. org moves very very quickly.
> >
> > I would have it in bold letters "we thoroughly recommend taking the
> > latest org release from git and here is how to do it (git pull with a
> > label)". Then if and when issues arise they can git pull as and  
> > when the
> > fixes arrive.
>
> I do understand why you say this, but these are supposed to be easy
> instructions; they should not involve usage of any version control
> software.
>
> > I say this because some distros (debian being the prime example)  
> > can be
> > very tardy with including latest versions.
>
> Yes, I agree. The org-latest.{zip,tgz} are what should be recommended
> (with the info caveat)

I think what we should recommend here is org.tar.gz and org.zip.  There
are the latest release, usually no more that 1 or 2 months old and  
stable.
Using the ..-latest files does carry this risk of making a beginner  
install
a bad version.  So if we go for beginners...

- Carsten