Alok,

Thanks for your continued interest. I was disheartened in this group's discussion about putting together a Lisp CD-ROM because it seemed like our focus was lost. My original idea was to put together the CD-ROM so people without copious Internet bandwidth and oodles of spare time could get started with a fairly good Lisp development environment simply. Other people seemed to want to put a lot of stuff on the CD-ROM like a bunch of the old stuff laying around on the Internet. I also succumbed to the idea that the first revision of the CD-ROM should be, in some way, well-rounded.

Shall we try to revive this Lisp CD-ROM production? Who should decide what will go onto it? I feel that a single Lisp with a bootable CD-ROM (I am thinking `Knoppix' for Intel & AMD processors) included should be the way to go. In spite of huge demands upon my time, I am willing to commit to that idea. To fill out the idea: the CD-ROM would boot up to a Knoppix-based GNU/Linux system. This idea allows me to concentrate upon what I know best and could get going fairly quickly: a Debian GNU/Linux system usable even in Internet cafes, without touching the hard disk. I think it would even be possible for people to install Debian packages this way, without using the hard disk. Probably even asdf-install would work. People with the capability to set aside a Linux partition could use knx-hdinstall so later boots would not require the CD-ROM.

Personally, I am only interested in making sure SBCL, CMUCL, and CLISP install and run properly. The latest Debian package for SBCL runs UCW with SLIME and threads just fine (see http://packages.debian.org/stable/devel/ ), so I would work to get that stuff on the CD-ROM too. Getting UCW installed is not easy, but I have it pretty much under control now and can even add a few notes about it. ;-)

Would anyone be interested in having a CD-ROM with a GNU/Linux command-line-Lisp-startup and about 4 good Lisp books (PCL, CLtL2, On Lisp, and CLHS)?

Perhaps this could even become our group's gift to the world.

I know this is all just talk, but this is right on target with the group's purpose.

Regards to all of you who don't just unsubscribe when they get this message. To the rest of you: get lost! ;-)

Tom




--
Lisp humour:

LISP> (setf god (symbol-value god))
Warning:  Declaring GOD special.
Error:  GOD is unbound.