From help-octave-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Wed Jan 27 19:06:49 1999
Subject: Re: Problems installing under Windows 95
From: "Dave Borger" <dborger at wilshire dot com>
To: "John W. Eaton" <jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
CC: help-octave at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 17:04:05 -0800

One step forward two steps back.  Your comments on the FIND file were
correct.  As it turns out, I do have a  version of FIND on my Cygnus directory
but it was later in the path than the DOS version.  For the moment, anyhow, I
have renamed the DOS version.

In the meantime I tried, even given the problems below, to run Octave.  I was
actually able to get it started and run the first several examples from the
manual including 'a\b'.  I was unable to get 'help' on anything including just
generic help.  When I got to the section on 'columns,' 'rows,' and 'length' I
found that none of that worked.  Instead I got a message

    error: 'columns' undefined near line 2 column 1
    error evaluating index expression near line 2, column 1

Because of the installation problems previously mentioned, I thought maybe I
should re-run the installation now that I had the proper FIND.  Now both 'sh
./install-octave' and 'bash ./install-octave' report that CAT.EXE is not
found, despite the fact that it is on a directory in my path.  Now, as you may
know, the default path used by the Cygnus USERTOOLs installation is rather
long and I could have easily mistyped in when I added it to my PATH.  However,
from the directory from which I am trying to install Octave I can type 'cat
install-octave' and, sure enough, the contents of the file are listed out.

In your response below you as if I have bash installed 'as /bin/sh.'  I'm
unsure what you mean by that.  I have bash on the same path as cat and if I
type 'bash' from any directory it returns the bash prompt.  (Again, forgive my
ignorance, but what is the relationship of bash and sh?)

On the matter of the C/D directory, it seems that your solution still requires
that the installation be physically on the C drive which, due to space, is
what I am trying to avoid.  However, if I can get these other issues resolved
I may just bite the bullet and put it there, perhaps moving some other
applications.

Dave


John W. Eaton wrote:

> On 27-Jan-1999, Dave Borger <dborger at wilshire dot com> wrote:
>
> | I have been having some problems installing the Octave binaries to the
> | D: drive on my Windows 95 system.  I have installed the Cygnus usertools
> | on the D: drive and have their location verifiably on my path.
> |
> | When I execute
> |
> |         sh ./install-octave d:/octave
> |
> | After listing the directories the installer plans to use (and answering
> | 'y' to the prompt), I get the message
> |
> |         ./mkinstalldirs: cannot open file "./mkinstalldirs"
>
> Do you have a copy of bash installed as /bin/sh?
>
> If you want to install Octave on a drive other than C:, I think you
> should probably mount the other drive as a subdirectory of C:.
> Something like
>
>   mkdir /d_drive
>   mount d: /d_drive
>
> at the bash prompt should work, I think.
>
> | FIND: Parameter format not correct
>
> I think the find command fails because the Cygwin user tools did not
> include find with the other tools, so the install script is finding
> the DOS find command, which doesn't work like the Unix find.
> Unfortunately, I don't have a Cygwin installed now, so I can't give
> you a copy of the right find.exe.  Perhaps someone else can help?
>
> jwe