[ REQ 5988]: gv download page

[munzner at cs.stanford.edu]

Hi guys,

 People who just go to the software/download/geomview.html page don't
see the README in the anonymous ftp directory that explains the Irix 6
situation. Can I suggest that you

 1. Put a prominent link to the ftp/pub/software/geomview README on the
    download page. 
 2. Instead of just an "SGI binary" link, have two: an "SGI Irix 4/5
    (IrisGL)" and "SGI Irix 5/6 (OpenGL)". 
 3. Add something about the Irix5/6 IrisGL patch to the patches section. 

This will not only help users but also cut down Irix 6 questions to
the software alias. I bet the majority of of people just download the
old Irix4 binaries, notice they don't work, and give up without
sending inquiries.

Just to be so explicit that there's no good reason to put it off :),
I'm advocating changing the SGI line right after "Version 1.5 of
Geomview" to the following three lines:

<LI><A HREF="ftp://ftp.geom.umn.edu/pub/software/geomview/README"><B>README</B></A>
<LI><A HREF="ftp://ftp.geom.umn.edu/pub/software/geomview/geomview-sgi.tar.Z">Download:Geomview (SGI Irix 4/5 IrisGL version)</A> 7.9 Megs
<LI><A HREF="ftp://ftp.geom.umn.edu/pub/software/geomview/geomview-opengl-irix5.tar.Z">Download:Geomview (SGI Irix 5/6 OpenGL version)</A> 8.1 Megs


And adding the following to the end of the patches section:

<LI><A HREF="ftp://ftp.geom.umn.edu/pub/software/geomview/irix5-irisgl-patch.tar.Z">Download: Patch for Geomview under Irix 6 (SGI)</A> 2.9 Megs
<BLOCKQUOTE>
        This patch file contains excutables compiled under IRIX 5 for
        Geomview and all external modules which use GL.  You'll need
        to apply this patch to geomview-sgi.tar.Z in order to use it
        on any IRIX 6 system (because geomview-sgi.tar.Z contains Irix
        4 GL binaries, which do not run on Irix 6.x systems).  This
        patch will work, but isn't essential, on IRIX 5 system.  To
        apply the patch, first unpack geomview-sgi.tar.Z, then unpack
        irix5-irisgl-patch.tar.Z from the same directory; it will
        overwrite the relevant executables in the distribution.
</BLOCKQUOTE>


Tamara