Message-ID:	<3238BCDA.A78@cs.com>
Date:	Thu, 12 Sep 1996 18:46:02 -0700
From:	"John M. Aldrich" <fighteer AT cs DOT com>
Organization:	Three pounds of chaos and a pinch of salt
MIME-Version:	1.0
To:	DJGPP Workers Mailing List <djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com>
Subject:	DJGPP Installation Diagnostic Program
References:	<Pine DOT SUN DOT 3 DOT 91 DOT 960912081407 DOT 15096C-100000 AT is>

Eli Zaretskii sent me the following suggestion in reply to one of my
posts on the newsgroup:

----
Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> John, how about writing a program that will check the DJGPP installation
> and report anything it finds wrong or worth changing?  For starters, it
> could look at the DJDIR and DJGPP environment variables to see if they
> are correctly (or at all) defined, then try to compile some trivial
> one-liner, then prepare a report on the available memory, the environment
> and AUTOEXEC.BAT/CONFIG.SYS, then...  At the end it would create a file
> with a full report that can be submitted to the news group.
> 
> I'm thinking about such a critter for quite a while now, but with so much
> things on my todo list that have to happen before the next release, I'm
> quite sure I won't find time to do this.  I think it will be a welcome
> addition to DJGPP, and it should make the work of those who answer FAQs
> a lot easier, at least as far as gathering the necessary info goes.
> 
> If you decide to bite the bullet, I suggest you post your thoughts to
> djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com, so people (notably, DJ) could suggest what
> should that program test in addition to the above.  Thanks.----

I think this is a great idea and would be glad to try to design such a
beastie.  However, I have a few questions before I get started:

1) Would it be better to design the program as a plain text program or
using some sort of windowing interface?  The latter would be more familiar
to many users, but I have far less experience with it.  If you think this
is a good idea, I would welcome pointers to sample code to implement a
text-based windowing system (using conio functions or whatever).

2) Should I even write the program with djgpp?  A significant number of
users fail to install a DPMI host when they install their files, yet the
program would require DPMI to run.

3) As an alternative to #2, I could use the 'pmode' stub to make the
program standalone.  Is this a good solution?

4) Obviously the first things to check for would be the following:

 - DJGPP files present
 - DJGPP files installed in the correct directory structure
 - Environment variables set
 - DJGPP version
 - Available memory
 - Evaluate PATH to look for other compilers' progs
 - Trivial program compilation

  Recommendations on the ordering of these tests?

5) Here are some additional ideas for things to look at, but I'm not sure
how workable/necessary they would be:

 - Look for old v1.x installations
 - Check Windows 95 LFN support (I don't have Win95 to test this...)
 - Checklist for necessary djgpp tools/packages
 - Refer problem areas to relevant FAQ sections
 - Debug autoexec.bat/config.sys
 - Debug DJGPP.ENV
 - Implement recommended changes to system files

  Comments?

6) Any other ideas for features to include?

7) What should I call it?  ;)  "DJDIAG" comes to mind, but I understand
that only DJ himself is allowed to write programs starting with his initials.

With suitable feedback I should be able to start on the project by this
weekend.

Thanks!

John <fighteer AT cs DOT com>

-- 
                      Anything that happens, happens.
    Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes
                         something else to happen.
 Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again.
        It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though.
 
                                       --- Douglas Adams

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