Re: faq.html updates

[Patrick Brunier]

Hi Ben,

If you've gotten no comments, and you're still happy with it..... please give me the green light, and I will change it.
Sorry for the delay but I've been on a holiday lately.

greets,

Patrick

On 8/7/06, Ben Pfaff <address@hidden> wrote:

I'd like to commit the following to faq.html.  Comments?

--- faq.html.~1.20.~    2006-05-07 17:40:10.000000000 -0700
+++ faq.html    2006-08-07 13:53:22.000000000 -0700
@@ -64,14 +64,14 @@
interprets commands in the SPSS language and produces tabular output
in ASCII, PostScript, or HTML format.</p>

-<p>One goal of the PSPP project is compatibility with the SPSS language. It
-also aims to be better written. Right now it features:</p>
+<p>One goal of the PSPP project is compatibility with the SPSS
+language.  It currently features:</p>
<ul>
   <li>High-quality output formatting:
     <ul>
-      <li>Presentation-quality tables on devices that can handle it, such as
+      <li>Presentation-quality tables on suitable devices, such as
         laser printers and raster displays. This is currently implemented
-        through a PostScript driver. A simple HTML tables driver is also
+        through a PostScript driver.  A simple HTML tables driver is also
         available.</li>
       <li>Other devices, such as terminals and dot-matrix printers, are
         supported through an ASCII driver. IBM PC box-drawing characters can
@@ -122,8 +122,9 @@ following support to users:</p>
           an "enhanced" mode in certain cases where PSPP can output
           better results that may surprise SPSS users.</li>

-       <li>Friendly textual and graphical interfaces.  PSPP does not do
-          a good job of this yet.</li>
+       <li>Friendly textual and graphical interfaces.  A GUI, called
+          <a href="" is in the
+          works.</li>

        <li>Attractive output, including graphs, in a variety of human-
           and machine-readable formats.  PSPP currently produces
@@ -169,26 +170,42 @@ following:</p>

<h2>What do I need to run PSPP?</h2>

-<p>As a minimum, you need the following:</p>
-<ul>
-  <li>A computer with a 32-bit or wider processor. Intel i386, Motorola m68k,
-    Digital 21<var>x</var>64, and so on, should all work.</li>
-  <li>4MB of memory. More is better, especially for large data sets.</li>
-  <li>Enough memory + disk to hold a temporary copy of your data set.</li>
-  <li>A POSIX.1 compliant operating system such as GNU or GNU/Linux.</li>
-  <li>An ANSI C compiler such as GNU gcc, if you intend to compile PSPP
-    yourself.</li>
-  <li>The relevant libraries upon which PSPP depends:
-    <ul>
-      <li><a href="" and gslcblas</li>
-      <li><a href="">-    </ul>
-  </li>
-</ul>
+<p>Before you install PSPP, you will need to install certain
+prerequisites:</p>
+
+       <li>An ANSI C compiler and tool chain.</li>

-<p>i386 Debian GNU/Linux is the primary development platform, but previous
-versions have been compiled and tested under other OSes, so porting should
-not be difficult.</p>
+       <li>The <a href="" Scientific Library
+       (GSL)</a>, version 1.6 or later, including libgslcblas
+       included with GSL.</li>
+
+       <li>Perl, version 5.005_03 or later.  (Perl is required during
+       build but not after installation.)</li>
+
+       <li>pkg-config (only if you need to regenerate configure after
+       modifying configure.ac).</li>
+
+       <li>Optional: <a href=""
+       Without it, PSPP will assume it is running in an 80x25
+       terminal.</li>
+
+       <li>Optional: libreadline and libhistory.  Without them,
+       interactive command editing and history features will be
+       disabled.</li>
+
+       <li>Optional: libplot (from <a href="">+       plotutils</a>).  Without it, graphing features will not work.
+       If you do not have it installed, you must run
+       <tt>configure</tt> with <tt>--without-libplot</tt>.</li>
+
+       <li>Optional: GTK+ version 2.6.0 or later, plus libglade 2.0
+       or later.  Without them, the GUI will not be built.  If you do
+       not have these installed, you must run <tt>configure</tt> with
+       <tt>--without-gui</tt>.</li>
+
+<p>i386 Debian GNU/Linux is the primary development platform, but
+previous versions have been compiled and tested under other OSes, so
+porting should not be difficult.</p>
<hr/>

<p><a name="WherecanIgetPSPP" id="WherecanIgetPSPP"></a></p>
@@ -197,7 +214,7 @@ not be difficult.</p>

<p>Source code for the latest release of PSPP is available at
<a href="" href="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/pspp/">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/pspp/ ">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/pspp/</a>.</p>
-<p>Older versions may be obtained from <a href="" href="ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/pspp/">ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/pspp/ ">ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/pspp/</a>.</p>
+<p>Obsolete versions may be obtained from <a href="" href="ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/pspp/">ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/pspp/ ">ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/pspp/</a>.</p>
<p>Development sources are available from CVS at <a href="" href="http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/pspp"> http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/pspp">http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/pspp</a>.</p>

<hr/>
@@ -268,7 +285,7 @@ additional documentation files are inclu

<p><a href="" id="Doespsppdoeshaveircchannel"></a></p>

-<h2>Does PSPP have it's own IRC channel?</h2>
+<h2>Does PSPP have its own IRC channel?</h2>

<p>Yes! You can find the channel on the <a href="" href="http://www.freenode.net">http://www.freenode.net">freenode network</a>. The channelname is #pspp.</p>

@@ -300,8 +317,8 @@ support it?</h2>
<ul>
   <li>Download the source code and implement it yourself.</li>
   <li>Hire somebody to implement it for you.</li>
-  <li>Send an email to the developers and ask if they'd be prepared to spend
-    the time doing it for you.</li>
+  <li>Send an email to the developers and ask for the feature.  The
+  developers are interested in hearing about what users want.</li>
</ul>

<p>Any help you can give is appreciated. See the following question.</p>
@@ -311,12 +328,7 @@ support it?</h2>

<h2>Can I help out with PSPP development?</h2>

-<p>Yes. The author is forming a team to proceed with PSPP development. If you
-are a statistician, programmer, numerical analyst, or technical writer who
-wants to work on the PSPP project, you can join the PSPP development mailing
-list.</p>
-
-<p>Goto <a href="" http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pspp-dev">http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pspp-dev </a>
+<p>Yes.  Visit <a href="" href="http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pspp-dev">http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pspp-dev"> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pspp-dev</a>
where you can subscribe to the mailing list or view the archives.</p>

<p>When you have fixed a bug or improved some parts of PSPP, you can submit your patches at <a href="" http://savannah.gnu.org/patch/?group=pspp">http://savannah.gnu.org/patch/?group=pspp</a> </p>
@@ -348,7 +360,7 @@ come up with. For example:</p>
   <li>People Should Prefer PSPP.</li>
</ul>

-<p>Send the best ones to me!</p>
+<p>Send along your favorites!</p>

<hr/>



--
"I knew it was a bad sign when I drove through Hell (MI) on Wednesday
and there was snow on the ground and all the standing water had a
layer of ice on the surface...  Yes folks, Hell has frozen over
and my cable modem *still* wasn't working..." --Ed Glowacki


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-- 
-- Patrick Brunier
-- patrick_at_brunier_dot_nl
-- http://www.brunier.nl

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.