=head1 Installation

LinkController's installation system is based on that of a normal Perl
module.  

The module is normally distributed along with several other modules.
Please install these before LinkController.  

The portability of LinkController to systems other than RedHat Linux
is likely to be a problem.  The scale of that problem will depend on
how far from RedHat Linux your system is.  In the end as I get access
to more LinuxLike systems (e.g. FreeBSD / Hurd etc. I'd like to
improve this situation, but not at the cost of efficiency and
maintainability on Linux.

=head1 installation from rpm

The easiest way to install link controller is to have the distribution
in RPM format.  In this case, simply install each of the RPMs with
@command{rpm -i}.  Trying to install just C<LinkController> will give
a list of the required rpm packages.  

=head1 installation from perl module

If your system doesn't run rpm then there isn't yet a pre-packaged
version (hopefully someone will do a port to Debian's packaging
system).  

=head2 installation pre-requisites

Before installing LinkController, you must install perl and a series
of related perl modules.  The full list is given in
C<lib/Bundle/LinkController.pm>.  You may find that trying to install
the LinkController bundle works for you (see the documentation of the
CPAN module e.g. with `man CPAN') but it doesn't work for me.  If it
does work then you are sorted.

The prerequisites can be downloaded from CPAN.
L<http://www.cpan.org/>

=head2 detailed steps for install

First you must install perl and the modules as explained above.  Then
run the following commands.

       perl Makefile.pl;
       make;
       make test;
       make install;

The file C<check-req.out> should be empty.  If it isn't that means
that you have to install some more perl modules.  Read the file to
find out which.

All of the tests should pass.  Do make sure that you run them so that
you know that everything is working properly.

Please note that you must run C<make> before you run C<make test>
because of the configuration of the installation system.

=head2 Choosing a Platform

Installing this software can be easy or difficult depending on what
operating system platform you are running on..  In approximate order
from easiest to most difficult (this is my guess)

=over 4

=item * 

RedHat Linux equal or better than 6.0 (see http://www.redhat.com/)

=item * 

other Linux (see http://www.linux.org/ for example)

=item * 

SUNOS with perl 5.003 or better already

=item * 

other UNIX perl 5.003 or better already 

=item * 

UNIX without perl

=item * 

WinNT (use cygwin for the best chance)

=item * 

Macintosh

=item * 

Other Windows

=back

With a previous version I had tried the top four.  Probably to get
the system running on SunOS will require manually setting up the
system since the programs for doing the default installation (in the
@file{default-install}) becuase that uses various GNU administration
programs which SunOS probably doesn't emulate accurately.

You will probably find it easier to just install Linux that to get
this running on Windows.  If you do want to get it running on other
operating systems and provide B<clean> patches, then I will be
supportive and helpful, but please note that I think most of the
portability problems will be with the underlying perl modules and CDB
related stuff.

=over4 References

   1. file://localhost/home/mikedlr/link-controller/from-cvs/link-controller/LinkController/docs/INSTALL.html#Installation
   2. file://localhost/home/mikedlr/link-controller/from-cvs/link-controller/LinkController/docs/INSTALL.html#Choosing_a_Platform
   3. http://www.redhat.com/)
   4. http://www.linux.org.uk/


=cut

