News Group Posts

Installing ssh

From: Tony Lawrence <tony@aplawrence.com>
Subject: Re: How on earth, was Re: New OpenSSH packages available (3.1p1)
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 20:02:23 GMT

Tony Lawrence wrote:

> Jean-Pierre Radley wrote:
> 
> 
>> Let me know if my tarball works.  Prng isn't involved, and while libz is
>> certainly used, I built ssh with a static zlib.a instead of a dynamic
>> one.   It's opensshOSR5.tar.bz2 at ftp.jpr.com.
>>
> 
> 
> BTW, that's yet another example of the kind of thing that frustrates 
> people.  Somebody goes searching for OSR5 ssh binaries and gets a 
> pointer to your ftp site.  Great! Here it is, all ready to go.. but they 
> can't do a thing with it because they don't have Bzip.
> 
> Now (thankfully) you *do* provide bzip on the same site, so if they 
> happen to notice that they will be able to enjoy success, but if they 
> don't- well, it's off for another net search.  More frustration.
> 
> And is bzip stand alone or does it have dependencies?  The cycle can go on.
> 
> And what's the point?  Because bzip saves a few bytes?  Because it saves 
> a few seconds?  All to naught if they have to download it and even worse 
> if the non-standard compression has to send them off on yet another search.
> 
> Just my opinion, of course, but I don't think it's appropriate.

I don't know whether this is funny or sad, but it proves my point.  I 
decided to see just what would happen if I had started from scratch with 
JPR's openssh package.

As noted above, that package is bzipped.  JPR has bzip, but.. it's not a 
binary, it's the source!  So now someone with a fresh OSR5 system who 
only wanted ssh has to :

Go download the GNU compiler from Skunkware.  That's a 24 MB download; 
just the thing someone on a low speed connectionwants to do.  It's made 
more fun by the fact that there are multiple versions available and nary 
a hint as to which one they might want.

This poor person will then learn that they also need make, so back to 
Skunkware for that.

Install the Linkers and Development Libraries from their OS CD.

Compile and install bzip  Assuming they have any clue at all how to do 
that of course- remember they started oout looking for binaries.

But let's assume they do know enough at least to cd to the bzip 
directory and run make- another surprise awaits them- make can't find ar!

Ooops.  Nothing at Skunkware, nothing at JPR's site.  That's probably 
the end of it right here- they aren't going to get any further.  But 
maybe this is a personal use system so they can actually install the Dev 
Sys with spending real money.  Maybe.  I'm really not sure what they'd 
do otherwise.

Use bzip to unzip the openssh.tar package.

Untar that

Wow, ssh works.

Hardly any effort at all :-)

I ask you very seriously: is it any wonder people give up on SCO?




-- 
Tony Lawrence
SCO/Linux Support Tips, How-To's, Tests and more: 

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