Installation (Unix)
===================

The S-Lang library is required to build slrn.  If you do not have a current
version of it on your system (1.4.x is needed for full features), you need
to build it before you can compile slrn.  S-Lang is available from
<URL:ftp://space.mit.edu/pub/davis/slang>.

Slrn uses the GNU autoconf package that makes the installation quite simple.
Usually, executing

    ./configure
    make
  [ strip src/slrn src/slrnpull ]
    make install
  [ make install-contrib ]
  
is enough to configure, build and install slrn.  All needed information will
be determined automatically.

The square brackets indicate optional commands: "make install-contrib"
installs two helpful scripts contributed by slrn users.  They require perl
to run.  More information about them can be found in contrib/README.*
If you do not know what "strip" does, you probably do not need to run it.

The configure script supports a number of options listed below.  Especially,
you need to specify --with-slrnpull if you plan to use slrnpull.

--prefix=PREFIX
    Set PREFIX to the base directory where the architecture-independent part
    of slrn shall be installed.
    Default: /usr/local

--exec-prefix=EPREFIX
    Set EPREFIX to the base directory where the architecture-dependent part
    of slrn will be installed.
    Default: PREFIX [/usr/local]

--bindir=BINDIR
    The directory where the slrn executable will be put.
    Default: EPREFIX/bin [/usr/local/bin]

--mandir=MANDIR
    The place where man pages will be installed.
    Default: PREFIX/man [/usr/local/man]

--datadir=DATADIR
    Architecture-independent read-only files such as slang macros.
    Default: PREFIX/share/slrn [/usr/local/share/slrn]

--sysconfdir=SYSCONFDIR
    Directory for global configuration files (like slrn.rc).
    Default: PREFIX/etc [/usr/local/etc]

--with-docdir=DIR
    The directory where slrn's documentation is placed.
    Default: PREFIX/share/doc/slrn [/usr/local/share/doc/slrn]

--enable-hardcode-libs
    Tells the linker to hardcode the path of dynamic libraries that are not
    in /usr/lib into the executable.  You need to specify this if
    compilation fails with a message saying that libslang cannot be opened.

--with-server-name=HOST
    Hostname of a fallback NNTP server if none has been selected by the user
    via environment or command line.
    Default: unset

--with-server-file=FILE
    At startup, slrn reads the name of a fallback NNTP server from this
    file. This option overrides --with-server-name; however, users may
    still select another server via environment or command line.
    Common settings for FILE are "/etc/nntpserver" and "/etc/news/server".
    Default: unset

--with-slang-library=DIR
    Explicitly set the location of the slang library.  If not used,
    configure will look for it automatically.
    
--with-slang-includes=DIR
    Explicitly set the location of the slang include files.  If not used,
    configure will automatically look for this as well.

--with-libdir=LIBDIR
    Directory where slrn will expect the global newsgroups description file.
    Default: PREFIX/lib/slrn [/usr/local/lib/slrn]

--with-ssl[=DIR]
    Include support for connections via SSL, using the OpenSSL library.
    You need to set DIR to the place where OpenSSL is installed.

--with-gnutls[=DIR] 
    Include support for connections via SSL, using the GNU TLS library and
    its OpenSSL compatibility layer.
    USE WITH CARE: GNU TLS is still under heavy development and slrn's
    support for it is untested.

--with-uudeview[=DIR]
    This option tells slrn to use the uudeview library for decoding
    uuencoded articles instead of its builtin routines.

--with-canlock[=DIR]
    Tells slrn to make use of the canlock library (needed to use
    "Cancel-Locks" when posting, see <http://cssri.meowing.net/>).
    USE WITH CARE: libcanlock does not seem to be fully mature yet; also, 
    the library does not have an installation routine. When installing it by
    hand, be careful to copy only canlock.h (and none of the other header
    files that come with it) into your system include directory.

--with-slrnpull
    Build slrnpull and enable support for it in slrn.

--enable-setgid-code
    Enables code that allows you to run slrnpull as an unpriviledged user.
    See doc/slrnpull/setgid.txt for details.

--disable-nntp
    Don't include NNTP support.

--enable-spool
    Include support for reading news directly from a news spool (enabled
    implicitly by --with-slrnpull).

--enable-inews
    Enable inews support (enabled implicitly by --enable-force-inews).

--enable-force-inews
    This option enforces the use of inews for posting.  Without this option,
    the user is allowed to choose a posting method.

--enable-strict-from
    This option completely disallows the user to configure his "From" header
    line.  All attempts to change the startup values that were retrieved
    from the system for "hostname", "username" and "realname" will fail.
    make_from_string_hook does not get executed; manually added "From"
    headers are rejected when posting.

--disable-slang
    Don't make the slang interpreter available from within slrn.
    Of course, slrn will still be linked against the slang library.

--disable-mime
    Don't include MIME support.  You should not do this if you intend to use
    any other charset than strict US-ASCII.

--disable-charmap
    Disables the mapping between ISO-Latin and native character sets like
    isolatin, ibm850, NeXT and koi8

--disable-spoilers
    Disable the special behaviour if slrn encounters a linefeed character.

--disable-emph-text
    Turn off the coloring of *emphasized* _text_.

--disable-verb-marks
    Disable the special treatment of text between #v+/#v- marks.
    Currently, these verbatim marks are only supported by slrn.

--disable-gen-mid
    This prevents slrn from generating its own Message-IDs.

--enable-mid-cache
    Make slrn cache Message-IDs during a session and use them to eliminate
    cross-posts.  This should not be necessary if your server supports Xref
    in its overview database.

--disable-fake-refs
    Don't use the In-Reply-To header for building the thread tree if no
    References header is available.

--enable-grouplens
    Enable grouplens support.  Since the grouplens project seems to be dead,
    you probably won't need this.  See README.GroupLens for further
    information.

--enable-warnings
    If using gcc, enable the output of warnings during compilation.

--enable-profiling
    If using gcc, the slrn binary will write profile data to gmon.out.
    Never use this option when compiling slrn for production use!

Some rarely used compile-time options are not under autoconf control.  You
need to edit src/slrnfeat.h manually before running "make" to change them.

If configure cannot find the slang library and include files, it will fail.
In this case, you need to point it to the right directories using
--with-slang-library / --with-slang-includes.  If a program (such as
sendmail or inews) is not found although it is installed on your system, run
PATH=$PATH:/path/to/program ./configure