Compiling CircleMUD Version 3.0 under Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows NT using Cygnus GNU-Win32 by David Goldstein (goldstei@cs.sunysb.edu) CircleMUD 3.0 compiles under version b19 or later of Cygnus Solutions' GNU-Win32 environment without needing any special modifications. This free pseudo-Unix environment for Windows 95 and NT includes the "bash" shell, "gcc" family of compilers, and a full set of programs and libraries for Windows users to compile and run programs from source code intended for Unix. It can be downloaded from Cygnus' own servers or a number of mirror sites through http://www.cygnus.com/misc/gnu-win32/download.html. Compiling Circle under GNU-Win32 is basically the same as it would be under another form of Unix: 1) Download and install cdk.exe from Cygnus' ftp server or one of the mirror sites, if you haven't already. It is a good idea to set the environment variables for GNU-Win32 in your startup sequence (autoexec.bat, etc.). 2) Again, if you haven't already done so, mount the directory containing the bulk of the executable GNU-Win32 programs, C:\Cygnus\B19\H-i386-cygwin32\bin by default, as /bin, by typing mount C:\Cygnus\B19\H-i386-cygwin32\bin /bin 3) Download and uncompress the latest version of CircleMUD according to the instructions in the main README file. (The FTP site is ftp.circlemud.org, in the pub/CircleMUD directory). Make sure that if you have downloaded the "zipped" version (circle30bpl13a.zip, or example), that you use an unzip program which can handle long file names to unzip it (like the Win32 version of Info-Zip's "unzip"). Otherwise, download ther "tarred, gzipped" version (circle30bpl13a.tar.gz), and extract the files using the versions of tar and gunzip which come with the GNU-Win32 CDK package. 4) Start the "bash" shell and go to the directory where you have extracted CircleMUD (we will assume "C:\circle30bpl13a", or "/circle30bpl13a" from within bash). DO NOT go into the "src" directory yet. 5) Run the shell script "./configure". This will automatically detect whether or not certain programs and library functions are available, and create the files "Makefile" and "conf.h" based on the results. 6) NOW change to the /circle30bpl13a/src directory, and type "make", and watch CircleMUD and the additional utilies included in the Circle distribution automatically being compiled and placed in /circle30bpl13a/bin. 7) Make sure your TCP/IP stack is installed, correctly configured, and running. If you are already using TCP/IP applications from your Windows machine such as Netscape or telnet, then no changes should be necessary; otherwise go to the Control Panel's "Network" settings, select "Add Protocol", and add Microsoft's TCP/IP. Consult the documentation for Windows 95 if you have any additional questions about how to set up TCP/IP under Windows 95. (Do not send mail to me or Jeremy Elson on this topic. Microsoft has an excellent tech support line, and chances are that your ISP has a decent tech support line too.) YOU MUST INSTALL AND CONFIGURE YOUR TCP/IP STACK, EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET. 8) Go back to /circle30bpl13a, and run the MUD either directly by typing "bin/circle", or by using the "./autorun" script. 9) Start a telnet program (SEE NOTE BELOW). Open a connection to your own machine ("localhost", or whatever the name of your machine happens to be) on port 4000. You should see the MUD's login screen welcoming you and asking for your name. VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: The standard telnet program that comes free with Windows 95 and NT does *not* work correctly for connecting to any MUD because it does not support telnet's line-mode interface (so you can't see what you are typing). Note that simply turning on the "local echo" option does not fix the problem; this prevents echo from being turned off while you're typing your password, and screws up the display if you try to hit the backspace key too many times. Do not use Microsoft's telnet applet -- instead, use EWAN, CRT, zMUD, or any other Winsock telnet application. EWAN and CRT can be downloaded from any number of sites (for example, www.windows95.com). zMUD is an excellent MUD client; for more information, see the official home page at http://www.trail.com/~zugg/zmud.html. Known errata: 1) CircleMUD cannot use the version of the crypt() function written by Andy Piper and distributed by Sergey Okhapkin (http://miracle.geol.msu.ru/sos/). If you have this "libcrypt.a" library installed, you need to disable it prior to running "./configure". I do not know if another version of crypt() will work or not. The problem manifests itself at runtime, when the program tries to encrypt passwords, and results in a segmentation fault which will crash the MUD. If you have problems, read this document again. Most of the questions which Jeremy Elson receives in email or which are posted to USENET newsgroups are answered in this README file, or in other documents included in the CircleMUD distribution. If you are still having problems and you're *sure* that this your question is not answered in this document or in one of the others files in the /circle30bpl13a/doc directory, try reading the CircleMUD FAQ at ftp://ftp.circlemud.org/pub/CircleMUD/FAQ. If all else fails, you can send me or Jeremy Elson mail for help. Note, however, that if you ask me any question that is answered in these documents, all we'll do is mail you the appropriate file. Credit where credit is due: Some parts of this document have been derived or outright copied from other files in the CircleMUD distribution, including the files README and README.WIN by Jeremy Elson. -David Goldstein