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Lynx 2.7.1 for OS/2
Table of Contents
* [1]Introduction
* [2]Installation
* [3]Getting Help
* [4]Bugs
* [5]License
Introduction
Hello and welcome to Lynx 2.7.1 for OS/2. This is a port of Lynx 2.7.1
from the Lynx-Dev sources (Unix and VMS). It should be fairly
complete, but it hasn't been tested very thoroughly. Be sure to read
the included [6]README file, which is more general than this file,
which applies only to the OS/2 port.
Why Lynx?
Lynx is a full featured text-oriented browser for the World Wide Web.
Though the trend in recent years has been towards graphical browsers,
there are still many good reasons for using Lynx. Lynx can be used to
format WWW output for users with special needs, such as the visually
impaired. Lynx is also much faster than any other browser out there,
and is good for doing quick lookups on URLs from a newsreader, for
example. Lynx lets you cut through the style and get right to the
substance.
Why port Lynx 2.7.1 to OS/2?
As you may know, there already is a Lynx port for OS/2: [7]Lynx/2,
ported by [8]Derek J. Decker. Actually, ported is too weak of a term,
since Lynx/2 has so many enhancements it's hard to know where to start
listing them. Let me say up front that this port is not intended to
supersede Lynx/2. Hardcore OS/2 Lynxers will want to have both. Lynx/2
has a lot of things this port doesn't have, most importantly: better
table support, user-selectable colors, and support for Java applets.
Lynx/2 is a lot less rough around the edges, takes account of things
like FAT-compatible filenames, for example, and is easier to install.
However, Lynx/2 is based on the Lynx 2.4 codebase. Lynx 2.7.1 has a
lot of things that Lynx 2.4 didn't. You can get a feel for these new
features by looking at the help files included with this package. The
highlights include frame support, some table support, lots of
user-customizable settings for things like comment handling, and
fairly thorough support for HTML 3.0 and HTML 3.2. Lynx/2 has some of
these things added in (tables and frames, notably). I needed a
text-mode browser that would do HTML 3.2, though, and that's one area
where Lynx 2.7.1 is ahead of Lynx/2.
Another feature of this port is that it works in an xterm under
[9]XFree86-OS/2 as well as in an OS/2 fullscreen or windowed session.
This is important to me because of the shortage of browsers that run
under XFree86-OS/2. Lynx/2 doesn't run under XFree86-OS/2 because it
uses direct VIO calls, while this Lynx 2.7.1 port uses only ANSI
routines for screen writes. So if you're an XFree86 user, you may want
to use Lynx/2 on your PM desktop, and Lynx 2.7.1 on your XFree86
desktop. Lynx 2.7.1 can also be displayed on an attached terminal.
Installation
Hardware and Software Requirements
Hardware
* An IBM-compatible PC capable of running OS/2 2.1 or later with
TCP/IP
* In effect, a 386sx or better with at least 8 MB of RAM.
Software
* OS/2 2.1 or later (I think...should definitely be OK on Warp 3 or
later).
* An HPFS partition, as I haven't made any allowances for FAT
filenames. Actually, FAT might work, but you won't have any online
help.
* IBM TCP/IP 2.0 or later (?) Warp 3 IAK, Warp Connect, and Warp 4
all fit the bill.
* EMX runtime 0.9c or later.
* GNU File Utilities. You need at least 'cp', and I'm not sure what
all else.
Installation Procedure
This is probably a little harder than it needs to be right now. I'll
try to make it as straightforward as possible.
1. Unzip the Lynx 2.7.1 package into a directory. You've probably
already done this.
2. If you haven't installed the EMX runtime or the GNU file utils,
now is a good time. If you don't have the GNU Fileutils and don't
want to install them, copy the file lcp.exe to cp.exe in the same
directory as your lynx.exe.
3. Copy lynx.exe to somewhere on your path, or to its own directory .
Put lynx.cfg somewhere; if lynx has its own directory put it
there. Don't use x:/MPTN/ETC (your ETC directory) if you have
Lynx/2 installed, or you will have conflicts. You need to put the
helpfiles somewhere, too. If lynx has its own directory, put their
directories under it.
4. Unzip the terminfo zipfile to its own directory somewhere.
5. Set some environment variables in your config.sys:
+ set HOME=x:/pathname (where you want personal configuration
files, signature files, etc to go)
+ set TMP=x:/tmpspace (a temporary directory)
+ set TERMINFO=x:/terminfo_path (where you unzipped the
terminfo files)
+ set TERM=something (where something is a terminal type
supported by terminfo and hopefully also termcaps: "ansi" is
a reasonable if unaesthetic value.)
+ set WWW_HOME=scheme://some.random.url/ (the URL you want Lynx
to load on startup.)
+ set LYNX_CONFIG=x:/pathname/lynx.cfg (Path where you put
lynx.cfg).
6. Edit your lynx.cfg file to suit your needs. Some things in here
must be changed to suit your configuration (especially your
domain, and the location to helpfiles, etc.).
7. Reboot to activate your environment variables; make a desktop
object for lynx.exe if you wish. Alternatively, instead of
modifying config.sys, you can make a lynx.cmd file containing all
of the environment variable settings and running lynx.exe.
8. Happy Lynxing!
Getting Help
The best place to start looking for help is in the Lynx help files. If
you have Lynx set up correctly, you can browse them just by hitting
'h' or '?'. If not, try looking at them with WebExplorer.
Lots of good information is available from [10]Lynx Links. I may have
more specific information about Lynx for OS/2 available from my
[11]Lynx page. If you're totally stuck, you can [12]email me, but
please don't send me any general Lynx questions, etc; just problems,
suggestions, or compliments regarding the OS/2 port.
Bugs
These are the bugs I know about:
* In some places, absolute paths starting with '\' or '/' work. In
others, they don't. Relative paths and absolute paths starting
with drive letters should always work. References to the home
directory as "~" don't seem to work, either.
* Removal of bookmark entries doesn't work. Use 'e' to edit your
bookmarks page instead until I find and fix this.
* Earlier bugs relating to the PageUp/PageDown/Home/End keys and to
unreadable colours have been fixed with the inclusion of a new set
of terminfo files. DIRED support has been compiled out, since it
didn't work and no one asked to have it fixed.
If anyone finds any other bugs, [13]let me know. In particular, I may
well have missed any number of places where Unix-like pathnames are
expected.
License
Lynx is distributed under the [14]GNU Public License, which you should
read. There is no warranty, as described in the license agreement.
Source code for Lynx is available from [15]lynx.browser.org (use the
Lynx 2.7.1 release code), while patches for compiling Lynx under OS/2
are included in this package. If you want to recompile Lynx for OS/2,
you will need to find the OS/2 ncurses port. I got it from [16]here,
but I'm not responsible for the ncurses port. If you can't get it from
the original source, you can try [17]here but don't count on that file
to always be there.
_________________________________________________________________
Jason.McBrayer@Tulane.edu
Last modified: Sat Jul 12 11:09:31 -0600 1997
References
1. file://localhost/D:/Projects/lynx2-7-1/distrib/readme_os2.html#intro
2. file://localhost/D:/Projects/lynx2-7-1/distrib/readme_os2.html#install
3. file://localhost/D:/Projects/lynx2-7-1/distrib/readme_os2.html#help
4. file://localhost/D:/Projects/lynx2-7-1/distrib/readme_os2.html#bugs
5. file://localhost/D:/Projects/lynx2-7-1/distrib/readme_os2.html#license
6. file://localhost/D:/Projects/lynx2-7-1/distrib/README
7. http://www.cris.com/~Djd/products.html
8. mailto:djd@cris.com
9. http://borneo.gmd.de/~veit/os2/xfree86os2.html
10. http://www.crl.com/~subir/lynx.html
11. http://studentweb.tulane.edu/~jmcbray/lynx
12. mailto:Jason.McBrayer@tulane.edu
13. mailto:Jason.McBrayer@tulane.edu
14. file://localhost/D:/Projects/lynx2-7-1/distrib/COPYING
15. http://lynx.browser.org/
16. ftp://phi.sinica.edu.tw/pub/aspac/os2/port/ncur197aOS2.zip
17. http://studentweb.tulane.edu/~jmcbray/lynx/ncur197aOS2.zip