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4. Online Availability

4.1 Download

If you are reading this on-line over the Internet, you may prefer to download the archive, uncompress it and read it off-line. Raven is intended to be download-able, so that you can fetch it.

It is also intended for inclusion on Freely distributable CDROM's (shareware). I also have text versions of the first issues, for access whilst your HTML browser is down.

The file that you download will probably be a tar archive file (unless I ate my todo list, and made an RPM version). To expand that into seperate files use the tar -zxf Raven-9607.tgz command, or follow the README.

Version "-0g" previews

If you have troubles downloading the files, please try different sites, and nag me with email if something stays broken. Your best bet used to be to get lucky and find trix online, now thanks to lth.se, you can browse an over-the-shoulder preview.

Version "-1a" release

So far the "-1a" release has been available as a .tgz on the InfoMagic LDR Apr 96 (on disk#6), from http://beyond.mamlo.lth.se/~gps/Raven/ftp and "open-for-reading" on http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs

Whilst waiting for the "-1c" release, try browsing a recent snapshot at http://beyond.malmo.lth.se/~gps/Raven/SSR01/Raven01.html . If you have a browsing web robot, use it to grab a local cache copy for offline brosing.

Edit the URL

If you are using lynx, there is no editable URL line, except the bash command line. If you are using netscape, it is easy to edit the URL line (HINT: click on it) and attempt to browse the directory table of contents (some site aren't browable, and require an index.html file).

If you get a bookmark from a friend, but the filename has changed, simply reduce the URL and try again.

keep your own netscape cache

I don't have a web robot, but I found that running netscape, on local file://tmp/mnt/phoenix/ over user_fs/ftp_fs, gave me the latest browser, that kept local copies, even after the phone went down. To do that you need userfs. If you don't have netscape or lynx, use mc.

Regretably, userfs_ftp only works over ftp, and my "over the shoulder" previews are on an http site. Oh well, either write a robot, or become one and save every page!

mc-3.2.1 as an ftp browser

mc has its own ftp_fs, (only works on ftp://site not http://site), F3 can view most types of files, F4 fetches a local copy for you to save, and F8 copies highlighed files and entire sub-directories.

4.2 Where to Find it

Offline at trix ...

http://trix.dircon.co.uk/Raven is my home machine, connected by a modem. It does NFS, SMB, FTP, HTTP and you are welcome, but it does have a limited bandwidth, and is prone to going offline suddenly.

Online at sunsite.unc.edu

http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/Raven is the "published" version. There should be a .tgz file in the Raven/ftp directory, but check the README files, as most people DONT want the postscript files, so they should be seperate.

sunsite worldwide

Sunsite is mirrored in many places http://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/Linux is one.

Since sunsite is such a common service, I see no need to maintain other sites, but if your country or region needs better access, and you wish to provide it, simply send me an email, and we'll arrange something.

Online at beyond.malmo.lth.se

http://beyond.malmo.lth.se/~gps/Raven is where you will find the latest over-the-shoulder pre-publication snapshot of Raven.

You should NOT mirror it, just nag me to release it properly!

You may take a personal local cache copy to browse offline.

CDROM Access

If this is on a CD, you should find a directory of uncompressed files, (ie a mirror of sunsite) and you can browse them directly.

DOS PC's may have problems with the long unix filenames, when not using Rockridge extensions. In that case view the generated text file, build a Linux box, and be happy.

If you don't have X11 running, try lynx or the text formatted versions. Issue-One has a useful overview on X11 configuration.

BBS access

When the "-1c" version is out, I shall put a DOS-ified version on the BBS circuit. I don't know much about either, so be patient. This will enable people to download something to get started.

4.3 majordomo info list

To get announcements of updates to Raven, you should join the raven mailing list. This is low volume, and (currently) for announcements only. To do so run the following command from a shell,

        echo subscribe raven | sendmail majordomo@trix.dircon.co.uk 

4.4 Try Before You Buy

This is £3 shareware, I hope you like it. I expect you to download it and read it before deciding!

Issues with themes.

Some issues have a theme, which makes it easier to select which issues you find relevent to you. So if you already have the hardware with Linux installed, you would probably skim and forget issue one.

Later issues may have a combination of themes. Hopefully it will still be clear to you, whether you want each issue or not.

Remember this is try-before-you-buy shareware, the only warrenty is that you decided it was worth the cover price!


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