[LLVMdev] Bugs in Getting Started Guide

[Tanya M. Lattner]

> (*) The “Getting Started Quickly” section describes commands using gunzip;
> the binaries are distributed using bzip2 instead.
>
> (*) The directory structure after step 4 doesn’t have a “llvm-3.4” or
> “platform” directory; no such command ‘fixheaders’ can be found.

These two sections have been fixed. Thanks!

> (*) The docs aren’t clear as to which “source code” is needed for step 5:
> the LLVM source code, or one of the GCC front-end source bundles. I’m
> assuming the LLVM source code, but links here to the
> most-recent-released-bundles for each would be *very* helpful here.

I'm not sure how we can make this more clear. It says "LLVM source" and 
also in the instructions gives the file name (llvm--version.tar.gz) 
which we use when naming the files. Having direct links to the files would 
mean another place to update when doing a new release. I'm not totally 
against that, but it is a pain as far as web maintenance.

I do think this is a much bigger issue in that we do not clearly explain 
what llvm is, what it provides, and how all the pieces fit together. This 
is something we are aware of and are working on rewriting/organizing all 
of the documentation and having a new website design.

> (*) There are a bunch of test files in the LLVM source bundle (from the
> previous point); is this the Test Suite Source Code?

No, they are different:
http://llvm.org/docs/TestingGuide.html

> (*) The docs aren’t clear as to whether the source bundle needs to be opened
> in the directory in which I have unbziped/untarred the previous bundle, or
> in the directory above it. Since the source build contains a top-level
> “llvm-2.1” directory in which everything is stored, I’m assuming I want to
> be in the directory above the previous step, so that all these files are in
> the same “llvm-2.1” directory.

The front-end binary and LLVM are separate things. Once again, I think 
this is part of the larger issue of how the pieces fit together.. but web 
redesign is a few weeks out.

The getting started quickly instructions say that you "cd 
where-you-want-the-C-front-end-to-live" and the unzip the front-end, 
followed by "cd where-you-want-llvm-to-live". If you have suggestions on 
how to make this more clear, please let me know. I would be happy to apply 
the patch.

> When running configure with flex and bison installed, I get “configure:
> error: cannot find output from flex; giving up”. Not sure what to do next.
> Anybody who’s gotten LLVM installed with MSYS and is willing to walk me
> through this, please respond offline. I’ll write up a complete step-by-step
> guide and donate it back to llvm.org if I can get an LLVM installation going
> under MSYS/MinGW32.

Hmm.. I had thought we changed things so flex and bison were not required. 
If you can file a bug on this, we can try to get it fixed.

Thanks,
Tanya