[tahoe-dev] Newbie installation notes

[Michael Rogers]

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Hi David-Sarah,

Thanks for the quick reply - responses inline.

On 14/05/12 02:35, David-Sarah Hopwood wrote:
> On 13/05/12 08:55, Michael Rogers wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> Here are a few notes I made while trying out version 1.8.2 of 
>> Tahoe-LAFS. I thought a newbie's perspective on the setup
>> process might be useful. I apologise if any of these are out of
>> date, they're from last September.
> 
> Thanks for the feedback; it's not out of date.
> 
>> 1. On Ubuntu, 'python setup.py build' fails unless the
>> python-dev package is installed.
> 
> This happens when it needs to compile a dependency written in
> C/C++, because there is no binary "egg" for that dependency. Can
> you tell which dependency it tried to compile (usually there will
> be messages from gcc)?

I just tried to repeat this with version 1.9.1 and it succeeds without
the python-dev package, so I guess this one's already fixed.

>> 2. quickstart.rst says "verify that the executable tool prints
>> out the right version number", but what's the right number? It
>> prints several.
> 
> The one after 'allmydata-tahoe: '. Fixed in quickstart.rst.
> 
>> 3. running.rst recommends connecting to the public test grid, but
>> the TestGrid wiki page says there's no longer a public gateway. I
>> wasn't sure whether I needed a gateway (apparently not?).
> 
> There is no longer a *public* gateway, but you can use your own
> gateway that points to the test grid.
> 
> I'm not sure that running.rst should still be recommending that,
> though.
> 
>> 4. The client's welcome page has scary red warning about not
>> being connected to a helper. I wasn't sure whether I needed a
>> helper (apparently not?).
> 
> You don't, and the banner should not be red. Filed as
> <https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1735>.
> 
>> 5. There weren't enough servers in the test grid to upload a
>> file, so I had to change shares.happy to 4.
> 
> <https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1082>, and 
> <https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1596> for a better
> error message in this case.
> 
>> 6. Download URIs are too long to paste into emails.
> 
> <https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/882>
> 
>> 7. I couldn't find a nice way to shut down the client.
> 
> bin/tahoe stop
> 
> This is documented in 'bin/tahoe --help' and in
> docs/frontends/CLI.rst. Is there any way we could improve the
> documentation to make it more obvious?

Ah, that makes sense. I was looking in the web interface for a way to
shut it down (as in Freenet).

>> 8. After restarting the client, I couldn't find the URI of the
>> file I uploaded in the first session.
> 
> Generally we recommend to create a directory and an alias pointing
> to it using 'tahoe create-alias', then upload files into that
> directory. How could we improve the docs here?

Sorry, after looking at running.rst again, it already recommends
creating a directory and warns that I won't be able to find it if I
don't bookmark it, so I think this one was my fault.

>> 9. I want a pony.
> 
> Filed as <https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1736>.

:-)

Thanks for fixing or filing the other issues.

Cheers,
Michael
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