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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
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<title>Dead Souls FAQ</title>
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<pre style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big><big><span
style="font-weight: bold;">Discworld Bundle FAQ</span></big><br><br>Written by Cratylus @ Dead Souls, October 2006<br><br></big><big
style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#1">What is the first thing I should know?<br></a><br></big><big
style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#2">What is the second thing I should know?</a><br><a
href="#3"><br></a></big><big
style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#3">Who is this for?</a><br><br></big><big
style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#4">What is Discworld?</a><br><br></big><big
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
style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#6">Why were you working on Discworld?</a><br><br></big><big
style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#7">Well, you wasted your time. It doesn't work.</a><br><a
href="#8"><br></a></big><big
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
href="#9"><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;">Where can I get support for Discworld lib, then?</big></a><br><br><a
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
href="#10"><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"></big></a><br><a
href="#11"><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;">Where can I get it?</big></a><br><big
style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><br></big></pre>
<big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a name="1"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What is the
first thing I should know?</span><br>
<br>
The Discworld Bundle is NOT DEAD SOULS. It is the Discworld mudlib,<br>
which is a completely different set of files than those distributed<br>
with Dead Souls. I, Cratylus, am not the author of Discworld, and<br>
you can consider this an official disclaim of any credit for its<br>
brilliance or blame for its pitfalls.<br>
<br>
<a name="2"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What is the
second thing I should know?</span><br>
<br>
The authors and maintainers of the official Discworld mudlib<br>
do not take responsibility for this bundle. This is a strictly<br>
"third party" deal which they will not support in any way. You<br>
are free to download and use it, but you are not entitled to<br>
receive support from anyone. Note that I can't give you<br>
authorization to distribute it either, since I am not the<br>
copyright holder. If you want to mirror it, you'd be wise<br>
to ask the Discworld/FluffOS guys first, like I did.<br>
<br>
<a name="3"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Who is this for?</span><br>
<br>
The Discworld bundle is absolutely not for newbie admins. This<br>
is not intended to be a "get started on your own mud the<br>
easy way!" sort of deal. I am making it available as a <br>
courtesy and favor to mudlib hobbyists who have an interest<br>
in tinkering with this lib. But if what you're looking for<br>
is a quick-start kit for your own mud, I strongly recommend<br>
you stop reading now and look elsewhere, because even though<br>
the Discworld Bundle makes installation easi<span
style="font-weight: bold;">ER</span>, it does not<br>
necessarily make it ea<span style="font-weight: bold;">SY</span>.<br>
<br>
<a name="4"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What is
Discworld?</span><br>
<br>
You're best off reading the official definition on the<br>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld_mud">Wikipedia entry
for the mud itself</a>.<br>
<br>
And this is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld_Mudlib">entry
for the mudlib</a>.<br>
<br>
<br>
<a name="5"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Aren't you the
Dead Souls maintainer? What's your angle here?</span><br>
<br>
I am indeed the maintainer of a different mudlib<br>
called Dead Souls (which I am not ashamed to plug<br>
here by pointing you to <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Souls_MUDlib">its Wikipedia
entry</a>). However, I<br>
have a general affection for the LP mud codebase family.<br>
During some experimentation I found that I had a<br>
relatively easier way of installing Discworld that people<br>
could take advantage of, and it seemed like a nice thing<br>
to do, making it available generally.<br>
<br>
I'm not afraid that people will use Discworld instead of<br>
Dead Souls. For one thing, I think that "more LPmuds",<br>
regardless of the codebase, is a net plus for DS. And<br>
anyway, what kind of lib author would I be, if I was<br>
afraid to let people compare my work side by side with that<br>
of others? Let the chips fall where they may.<br>
<br>
<a name="6"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Why were you
working on Discworld?</span><br>
<br>
During Dead Souls development I decided to take a serious look<br>
at database integration. I discovered that the work done<br>
on Dead Souls before I became the maintainer lacked the <br>
core lib systems that were needed to have the lib and<br>
driver communicate with a database.<br>
<br>
So I started messing around with other libs, to see how they<br>
did it, to get some inspiration.<br>
<br>
<a name="7"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Well, you
wasted your time. It doesn't work.</span><br>
<br>
There is such a vast and bewildering array of operating<br>
system and development software and system hardware architecture<br>
combinations out there that there is simply no way for<br>
me to guarantee that the bundle will work for everyone...<br>
or indeed for most.<br>
<br>
I can assure you that the bundle puts you much much closer<br>
to a successful DW start than you'd be without it. If it<br>
still doesn't work out of the box, there are a few pointers<br>
I might suggest:<br>
<br>
* I haven't tested this on Cygwin or any other Windows emulation<br>
or native windows compilation suite. For all I know it is not<br>
possible to get it to work on Windows.<br>
<br>
* DW/FluffOS expects your system to have file compression libraries.<br>
If you don't have zlib, or it's in an exotic location, or<br>
your library search path is munged, you will probably experience<br>
some level of sadness. If sadness what you feel, try ensuring<br>
that none of those three conditions apply to you.<br>
<br>
* Because dw seems to make frequent use of compression both<br>
for data storage and connections, some events appear to take<br>
an inordinately long period of time. This will be especially<br>
noticeable on slower computers. Just be patient.<br>
<br>
* Do NOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES attempt to contact Discworld<br>
mud personnel or Discworld mudlib maintainers to complain that<br>
this bundle is lame or to ask for help with it. It'll be like<br>
asking Bill Joy to come over and help you install Solaris. His<br>
involvement with the development of UNIX doesn't entitle you to<br>
help from him, and the Discworld people don't deserve to be <br>
exposed to noob brainwaves from people who think they are owed
assistance.<br>
<br>
* Perhaps the most important thing you can read is this:<br>
<a href="http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/faqs/smart-questions.html">http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/faqs/smart-questions.html</a><br>
Note that the people on that page also are not to be contacted for
support.<br>
<br>
<br>
<a name="8"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">It works, but
the thing keeps rebooting every 20 minutes.</span><br>
<br>
You got me there. I never claimed to be a Discworld expert. I<br>
can set it up so it's not impossible to install, but after that,<br>
getting it to work *well* is on you.<br>
<br>
<a name="9"></a><span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Where can I get
support for Discworld lib, then?</span><br>
<br>
Once it is installed, it might not be unreasonable to<br>
ask for advice on the discworld-chat line. Certainly it's<br>
a good idea to review all the docs at the Discworld site:<br>
<a href="http://discworld.atuin.net/lpc/about/mudlib.html">http://discworld.atuin.net/lpc/about/mudlib.html</a><br>
<br>
You're also welcome to visit the <a href="http://lpmuds.net/forum/">LPMuds.net</a>
discussion forum<br>
and chat there, but don't expect quick turnaround on your<br>
questions. Discworld lib experts are fewer and far between<br>
than they once were, so you may have to wait a little<br>
for a helpful response.<br>
<br>
<br style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">
<span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><a
name="10"></a>I work with DW lib all the time. It's not that hard to
set up.</span><br>
<br>
Now that I've done it, I have a better chance of being able to<br>
do it again starting from 0 again, in say, under 3 hours.<br>
<br>
Old DW'ers need to keep in mind that the driver available out<br>
there is FluffOS 1.22, which is sufficiently old to present<br>
inconveniences on newer compilers. The lib itself needs some<br>
refitting to work, such as the mappingp()/mappp() define<br>
conflict, and the max-number-of-inheritables problem in<br>
simul_efun.c. If you don't happen to be handy at truss/strace,<br>
or gdb, or coredump analysis, some of this stuff is super<br>
super hard to troubleshoot.<br>
<br>
The idea of this bundle is that people with advanced lib<br>
skills but limited compiling/syscall tracing experience<br>
can indulge in examining the lib, without having to<br>
invest days investigating problems that they can't tell<br>
whether they are lib issues, driver issues, bugs in<br>
either, or misconfigs.<br>
<br>
So, yes, definitely, there are lots of people out there for<br>
whom slapping dw together and checking it out is fairly<br>
ho-hum stuff, but the casual mud hobbyist has, from<br>
everything I've heard, found it too frustrating.<br>
<br>
Many people will still run into problems, I'm sure, but<br>
even for those, this should get them closer to the ballpark.<br>
<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><a
name="11"></a>Where can I get it?</span><br>
<br>
<a href="http://lpmuds.net/files/discworld/">http://lpmuds.net/files/discworld/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<a href="http://lpmuds.net/"><small>LPMuds.net</small></a><br>
</big>
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