    Skylib Bundle FAQ

    Written by Cratylus @ Dead Souls, October 2006

    What is the first thing I should know?

    What is the second thing I should know?

    Who is this for?

    What is Skylib?

    Aren't you the Dead Souls maintainer? What's your angle here?

    Why were you working on Skylib?

    Well, you wasted your time. It doesn't work.

    Where can I get support for Skylib, then?

    I work with Skylib all the time. It's not that hard to set up.

    Where can I get it?

What is the first thing I should know?
The Skylib Bundle is NOT DEAD SOULS. It is the Skylib mudlib,
which is a completely different set of files than those distributed
with Dead Souls. I, Cratylus, am not the author of Skylib, and
you can consider this an official disclaim of any credit for its
brilliance or blame for its pitfalls.
What is the second thing I should know?
The authors and maintainers of the official Skylib mudlib
do not take responsibility for this bundle. This is a strictly
"third party" deal which they will not support in any way. You
are free to download and use it, but you are not entitled to
receive support from anyone.
Who is this for?
The Skylib bundle is absolutely not for newbie admins. This
is not intended to be a "get started on your own mud the
easy way!" sort of deal. I am making it available as a
courtesy and favor to mudlib hobbyists who have an interest
in tinkering with this lib. But if what you're looking for
is a quick-start kit for your own mud, I strongly recommend
you stop reading now and look elsewhere, because even though
the Skylib Bundle makes installation easiER, it does not
necessarily make it eaSY.
What is Skylib?
It's a mudlib based on the Skylib Mud, which was
originally based on the Discworld mudlib.
Aren't you the Dead Souls maintainer? What's your angle here?
I am indeed the maintainer of a different mudlib
called Dead Souls (which I am not ashamed to plug
here by pointing you to its Wikipedia entry). However, I
have a general affection for the LP mud codebase family.
During some experimentation I found that I had a
relatively easier way of installing Skylib that people
could take advantage of, and it seemed like a nice thing
to do, making it available generally.
I'm not afraid that people will use Skylib instead of
Dead Souls. For one thing, I think that "more LPmuds",
regardless of the codebase, is a net plus for DS. And
anyway, what kind of lib author would I be, if I was
afraid to let people compare my work side by side with that
of others? Let the chips fall where they may.
Why were you working on Skylib?
During Dead Souls development I decided to take a serious look
other libs after experiencing success experimenting with
Discworld lib. I got a bit carried away, I'm afraid, and
decided to see what else I could bundle.
Well, you wasted your time. It doesn't work.
There is such a vast and bewildering array of operating
system and development software and system hardware architecture
combinations out there that there is simply no way for
me to guarantee that the bundle will work for everyone...
or indeed for most.
I can assure you that the bundle puts you much much closer
to a successful Skylib start than you'd be without it. If it
still doesn't work out of the box, please note:
* I haven't tested this on Cygwin or any other Windows emulation
or native windows compilation suite. For all I know it is not
possible to get it to work on Windows.
* Skylib expects your system to have file compression libraries.
If you don't have zlib, or it's in an exotic location, or
your library search path is munged, you will probably experience
some level of sadness. If sadness what you feel, try ensuring
that none of those three conditions apply to you.
* Do NOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES attempt to contact Skylib
mud personnel or Skylib mudlib maintainers to complain that
this bundle is lame or to ask for help with it. It'll be like
asking Bill Joy to come over and help you install Solaris. His
involvement with the development of UNIX doesn't entitle you to
help from him, and the Skylib people don't deserve to be
exposed to noob brainwaves from people who think they are owed assistance.
* Perhaps the most important thing you can read is this:
http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/faqs/smart-questions.html
Note that the people on that page also are not to be contacted for support.
Where can I get support for Skylib?
Once it is installed, it might not be unreasonable to
ask for advice on the imud_code line.
You're also welcome to visit the LPMuds.net discussion forum
and chat there, but don't expect quick turnaround on your
questions. Skylib experts are fewer and farther between
than they once were, so you may have to wait a little
for a helpful response.
I work with Skylib all the time. It's not that hard to set up.
That's true. The small driver and lib tweaks necessary to
get Skylib compiled and run on a modern system aren't
that big a deal, but it seemed like a nice thing to do anyway.
Many people will still run into problems, I'm sure, but
even for those, this should get them closer to the ballpark.
Where can I get it?
http://lpmuds.net/files/
LPMuds.net