<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="content-type"> <title>Dead Souls FAQ</title> <link rel="icon" href="./favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon"> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="./favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon"> </head> <body> <pre style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><big><big><span style="font-weight: bold;">Merentha Bundle FAQ</span></big><br><br>Written by Cratylus @ Dead Souls, October 2006<br><br></big><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#1">What is the first thing I should know?<br></a><br></big><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#2">What is the second thing I should know?</a><br><a href="#3"><br></a></big><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#3">Who is this for?</a><br><br></big><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#4">What is Merentha?</a><br><br></big><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#5">Aren't you the Dead Souls maintainer? What's your angle here?</a><br><br></big><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#6">Why were you working on Merentha?</a><br><br></big><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#7">Well, you wasted your time. It doesn't work.</a><br><a href="#8"><br></a></big><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a href="#8">It works, but the intermud system is weird and clunky.</a><br><br></big><a href="#9"><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;">Where can I get support for Merentha lib, then?</big></a><br><br><a href="#10"><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;">I work with Merentha lib all the time. It's not that hard to set up.</big></a><br><a href="#10"><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"></big></a><br><a href="#11"><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;">Where can I get it?</big></a><br><big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><br></big></pre> <big style="font-family: courier new,courier,monospace;"><a name="1"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What is the first thing I should know?</span><br> <br> The Merentha Bundle is NOT DEAD SOULS. It is the Merentha mudlib,<br> which is a completely different set of files than those distributed<br> with Dead Souls. I, Cratylus, am not the author of Merentha, and<br> you can consider this an official disclaim of any credit for its<br> brilliance or blame for its pitfalls.<br> <br> <a name="2"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What is the second thing I should know?</span><br> <br> The authors and maintainers of the official Merentha mudlib<br> do not take responsibility for this bundle. This is a strictly<br> "third party" deal which they will not support in any way. You<br> are free to download and use it, but you are not entitled to<br> receive support from anyone. Note that I can't give you<br> authorization to distribute it either, since I am not the<br> copyright holder. If you want to mirror it, you'd be wise<br> to ask the Merentha maintainer first, like I did.<br> <br> <a name="3"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Who is this for?</span><br> <br> The Merentha bundle is absolutely not for newbie admins. This<br> is not intended to be a "get started on your own mud the<br> easy way!" sort of deal. I am making it available as a <br> courtesy and favor to mudlib hobbyists who have an interest<br> in tinkering with this lib. But if what you're looking for<br> is a quick-start kit for your own mud, I strongly recommend<br> you stop reading now and look elsewhere, because even though<br> the Merentha Bundle makes installation easi<span style="font-weight: bold;">ER</span>, it does not<br> necessarily make it ea<span style="font-weight: bold;">SY</span>.<br> <br> <a name="4"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">What is Merentha lib?</span><br> <br> It's a mudlib based on the Merentha Mud, which was<br> originaly based on the Nightmare 3 mudlib.<br> <br> <br> <a name="5"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Aren't you the Dead Souls maintainer? What's your angle here?</span><br> <br> I am indeed the maintainer of a different mudlib<br> called Dead Souls (which I am not ashamed to plug<br> here by pointing you to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Souls_MUDlib">its Wikipedia entry</a>). However, I<br> have a general affection for the LP mud codebase family.<br> During some experimentation I found that I had a<br> relatively easier way of installing Merentha that people<br> could take advantage of, and it seemed like a nice thing<br> to do, making it available generally.<br> <br> I'm not afraid that people will use Merentha instead of<br> Dead Souls. For one thing, I think that "more LPmuds",<br> regardless of the codebase, is a net plus for DS. And<br> anyway, what kind of lib author would I be, if I was<br> afraid to let people compare my work side by side with that<br> of others? Let the chips fall where they may.<br> <br> <br> <a name="6"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Why were you working on Merentha?</span><br> <br> During Dead Souls development I decided to take a serious look<br> other libs after experiencing success experimenting with<br> Discworld lib. I got a bit carried away, I'm afraid, and<br> decided to see what else I could bundle.<br> <br> <br> <a name="7"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Well, you wasted your time. It doesn't work.</span><br> <br> There is such a vast and bewildering array of operating<br> system and development software and system hardware architecture<br> combinations out there that there is simply no way for<br> me to guarantee that the bundle will work for everyone...<br> or indeed for most.<br> <br> I can assure you that the bundle puts you much much closer<br> to a successful Merentha start than you'd be without it. If it<br> still doesn't work out of the box, please note:<br> <br> * I haven't tested this on Cygwin or any other Windows emulation<br> or native windows compilation suite. For all I know it is not<br> possible to get it to work on Windows.<br> <br> * Do NOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES attempt to contact Merentha<br> mud personnel or Merentha mudlib maintainers to complain that<br> this bundle is lame or to ask for help with it. It'll be like<br> asking Bill Joy to come over and help you install Solaris. His<br> involvement with the development of UNIX doesn't entitle you to<br> help from him, and the Merentha people don't deserve to be <br> exposed to noob brainwaves from people who think they are owed assistance.<br> <br> * Perhaps the most important thing you can read is this:<br> <a href="http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/faqs/smart-questions.html">http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/faqs/smart-questions.html</a><br> Note that the people on that page also are not to be contacted for support.<br> <br> <br> <a name="8"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">It works, but the intermud system is weird and clunky.</span><br> <br> Don't blame Merentha for that. Merentha doesn't normally<br> come with an Intermud-3 subsystem, so as part of my<br> bundling I decided to graft one on, so that new adopters<br> could conveniently ask for help once they were online.<br> <br> I very crudely lifted some of the public domain Dead Souls<br> i3 code and bolted it onto Merentha. It sort of mostly<br> works, and you can use the following channels:<br> <br> dead_test4<br> dchat<br> imud_code<br> <br> Note that you'll need to either relogin your new admin<br> character, or reboot the mud, to have channel access. Once<br> you do, test it by typing:<br> <br> dead_test4 test<br> <br> I wouldn't be surprised to discover it works poorly or<br> insecurely. It's just an ad hoc stopgap. If you don't like<br> it, yank it, and/or write yer own.<br> <br> <br> <a name="9"></a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Where can I get support for Merentha lib, then?</span><br> <br> Once it is installed, it might not be unreasonable to<br> ask for advice on the imud_code line. <br> <br> You're also welcome to visit the <a href="http://lpmuds.net/forum/">LPMuds.net</a> discussion forum<br> and chat there, but don't expect quick turnaround on your<br> questions. Merentha lib experts are fewer and farther between<br> than they once were, so you may have to wait a little<br> for a helpful response.<br> <br> <br style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"> <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><a name="10"></a>I work with Merentha lib all the time. It's not that hard to set up.</span><br> <br> That's true. The small driver and lib tweaks necessary to<br> get Merentha compiled and run on a modern system aren't<br> that big a deal, but it seemed like a nice thing to do anyway.<br> <br> Many people will still run into problems, I'm sure, but<br> even for those, this should get them closer to the ballpark.<br> <br> <br> <span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><a name="11"></a>Where can I get it?</span><br> <br> <a href="http://lpmuds.net/files/">http://lpmuds.net/files/</a><br> <br> <br> <a href="http://lpmuds.net/"><small>LPMuds.net</small></a><br> </big> <br> </body> </html>