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<pre style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big><big><span
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style="font-weight: bold;">Discworld Bundle FAQ</span></big><br><br>Written by Cratylus @ Dead Souls, October 2006<br><br></big><big
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style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#1">What is the first thing I should know?<br></a><br></big><big
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style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#2">What is the second thing I should know?</a><br><a
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href="#3"><br></a></big><big
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style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#3">Who is this for?</a><br><br></big><big
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style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#4">What is Discworld?</a><br><br></big><big
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style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#5">Aren't you the Dead Souls maintainer? What's your angle here?</a><br><br></big><big
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style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#6">Why were you working on Discworld?</a><br><br></big><big
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style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#7">Well, you wasted your time. It doesn't work.</a><br><a
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href="#8"><br></a></big><big
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style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#8">It works, but the thing keeps rebooting every 20 minutes.</a><br><br></big><a
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href="#9"><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;">Where can I get support for Discworld lib, then?</big></a><br><br><a
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href="#10"><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;">I work with DW lib all the time. It's not that hard to set up.</big></a><br><a
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href="#10"><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"></big></a><br><a
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href="#11"><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;">Where can I get it?</big></a><br><big
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style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><br></big></pre>
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<big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a name="1"></a><span
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style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What is the
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first thing I should know?</span><br>
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<br>
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The Discworld Bundle is NOT DEAD SOULS. It is the Discworld mudlib,<br>
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which is a completely different set of files than those distributed<br>
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with Dead Souls. I, Cratylus, am not the author of Discworld, and<br>
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you can consider this an official disclaim of any credit for its<br>
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brilliance or blame for its pitfalls.<br>
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<br>
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<a name="2"></a><span
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style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What is the
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second thing I should know?</span><br>
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<br>
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The authors and maintainers of the official Discworld mudlib<br>
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do not take responsibility for this bundle. This is a strictly<br>
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"third party" deal which they will not support in any way. You<br>
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are free to download and use it, but you are not entitled to<br>
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receive support from anyone. Note that I can't give you<br>
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authorization to distribute it either, since I am not the<br>
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copyright holder. If you want to mirror it, you'd be wise<br>
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to ask the Discworld/FluffOS guys first, like I did.<br>
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<br>
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<a name="3"></a><span
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style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Who is this for?</span><br>
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<br>
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The Discworld bundle is absolutely not for newbie admins. This<br>
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is not intended to be a "get started on your own mud the<br>
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easy way!" sort of deal. I am making it available as a <br>
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courtesy and favor to mudlib hobbyists who have an interest<br>
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in tinkering with this lib. But if what you're looking for<br>
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is a quick-start kit for your own mud, I strongly recommend<br>
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you stop reading now and look elsewhere, because even though<br>
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the Discworld Bundle makes installation easi<span
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style="font-weight: bold;">ER</span>, it does not<br>
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necessarily make it ea<span style="font-weight: bold;">SY</span>.<br>
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<br>
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<a name="4"></a><span
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style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What is
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Discworld?</span><br>
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<br>
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You're best off reading the official definition on the<br>
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld_mud">Wikipedia entry
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for the mud itself</a>.<br>
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<br>
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And this is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld_Mudlib">entry
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for the mudlib</a>.<br>
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<br>
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<br>
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<a name="5"></a><span
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style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Aren't you the
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Dead Souls maintainer? What's your angle here?</span><br>
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<br>
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I am indeed the maintainer of a different mudlib<br>
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called Dead Souls (which I am not ashamed to plug<br>
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here by pointing you to <a
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href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Souls_MUDlib">its Wikipedia
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entry</a>). However, I<br>
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have a general affection for the LP mud codebase family.<br>
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During some experimentation I found that I had a<br>
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relatively easier way of installing Discworld that people<br>
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could take advantage of, and it seemed like a nice thing<br>
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to do, making it available generally.<br>
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<br>
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I'm not afraid that people will use Discworld instead of<br>
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Dead Souls. For one thing, I think that "more LPmuds",<br>
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regardless of the codebase, is a net plus for DS. And<br>
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anyway, what kind of lib author would I be, if I was<br>
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afraid to let people compare my work side by side with that<br>
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of others? Let the chips fall where they may.<br>
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<br>
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<a name="6"></a><span
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style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Why were you
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working on Discworld?</span><br>
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<br>
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During Dead Souls development I decided to take a serious look<br>
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at database integration. I discovered that the work done<br>
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on Dead Souls before I became the maintainer lacked the <br>
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core lib systems that were needed to have the lib and<br>
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driver communicate with a database.<br>
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<br>
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So I started messing around with other libs, to see how they<br>
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did it, to get some inspiration.<br>
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<br>
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<a name="7"></a><span
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style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Well, you
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wasted your time. It doesn't work.</span><br>
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<br>
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There is such a vast and bewildering array of operating<br>
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system and development software and system hardware architecture<br>
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combinations out there that there is simply no way for<br>
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me to guarantee that the bundle will work for everyone...<br>
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or indeed for most.<br>
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<br>
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I can assure you that the bundle puts you much much closer<br>
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to a successful DW start than you'd be without it. If it<br>
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still doesn't work out of the box, there are a few pointers<br>
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I might suggest:<br>
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<br>
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* I haven't tested this on Cygwin or any other Windows emulation<br>
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or native windows compilation suite. For all I know it is not<br>
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possible to get it to work on Windows.<br>
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<br>
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* DW/FluffOS expects your system to have file compression libraries.<br>
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If you don't have zlib, or it's in an exotic location, or<br>
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your library search path is munged, you will probably experience<br>
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some level of sadness. If sadness what you feel, try ensuring<br>
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that none of those three conditions apply to you.<br>
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<br>
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* Because dw seems to make frequent use of compression both<br>
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for data storage and connections, some events appear to take<br>
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an inordinately long period of time. This will be especially<br>
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noticeable on slower computers. Just be patient.<br>
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<br>
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* Do NOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES attempt to contact Discworld<br>
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mud personnel or Discworld mudlib maintainers to complain that<br>
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this bundle is lame or to ask for help with it. It'll be like<br>
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asking Bill Joy to come over and help you install Solaris. His<br>
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involvement with the development of UNIX doesn't entitle you to<br>
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help from him, and the Discworld people don't deserve to be <br>
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exposed to noob brainwaves from people who think they are owed
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assistance.<br>
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<br>
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* Perhaps the most important thing you can read is this:<br>
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<a href="http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/faqs/smart-questions.html">http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/faqs/smart-questions.html</a><br>
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Note that the people on that page also are not to be contacted for
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support.<br>
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<br>
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<br>
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<a name="8"></a><span
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style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">It works, but
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the thing keeps rebooting every 20 minutes.</span><br>
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<br>
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You got me there. I never claimed to be a Discworld expert. I<br>
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can set it up so it's not impossible to install, but after that,<br>
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getting it to work *well* is on you.<br>
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<br>
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<a name="9"></a><span
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style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Where can I get
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support for Discworld lib, then?</span><br>
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<br>
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Once it is installed, it might not be unreasonable to<br>
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ask for advice on the discworld-chat line. Certainly it's<br>
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a good idea to review all the docs at the Discworld site:<br>
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<a href="http://discworld.atuin.net/lpc/about/mudlib.html">http://discworld.atuin.net/lpc/about/mudlib.html</a><br>
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<br>
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You're also welcome to visit the <a href="http://lpmuds.net/forum/">LPMuds.net</a>
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discussion forum<br>
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and chat there, but don't expect quick turnaround on your<br>
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questions. Discworld lib experts are fewer and far between<br>
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than they once were, so you may have to wait a little<br>
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for a helpful response.<br>
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<br>
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<br style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">
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<span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><a
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name="10"></a>I work with DW lib all the time. It's not that hard to
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set up.</span><br>
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<br>
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Now that I've done it, I have a better chance of being able to<br>
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do it again starting from 0 again, in say, under 3 hours.<br>
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<br>
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Old DW'ers need to keep in mind that the driver available out<br>
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there is FluffOS 1.22, which is sufficiently old to present<br>
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inconveniences on newer compilers. The lib itself needs some<br>
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refitting to work, such as the mappingp()/mappp() define<br>
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conflict, and the max-number-of-inheritables problem in<br>
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simul_efun.c. If you don't happen to be handy at truss/strace,<br>
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or gdb, or coredump analysis, some of this stuff is super<br>
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super hard to troubleshoot.<br>
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<br>
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The idea of this bundle is that people with advanced lib<br>
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skills but limited compiling/syscall tracing experience<br>
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can indulge in examining the lib, without having to<br>
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invest days investigating problems that they can't tell<br>
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whether they are lib issues, driver issues, bugs in<br>
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either, or misconfigs.<br>
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<br>
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So, yes, definitely, there are lots of people out there for<br>
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whom slapping dw together and checking it out is fairly<br>
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ho-hum stuff, but the casual mud hobbyist has, from<br>
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everything I've heard, found it too frustrating.<br>
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<br>
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Many people will still run into problems, I'm sure, but<br>
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even for those, this should get them closer to the ballpark.<br>
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<br>
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<br>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><a
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name="11"></a>Where can I get it?</span><br>
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<br>
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<a href="http://lpmuds.net/files/discworld/">http://lpmuds.net/files/discworld/</a><br>
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<br>
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<br>
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<a href="http://lpmuds.net/"><small>LPMuds.net</small></a><br>
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</big>
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