Re: Docbook set-up difficulties

[Dan Mueth <d-mueth uchicago edu>]

Hi Ian,

I will try to be helpful, although I have never installed 
all this stuff from tarball before, or on a non-RedHat system 
for that matter.

On Sun, 17 Sep 2000, Ian Miller wrote:

> Hello.
> 
> Having spent the last couple of days reading docbook
> documentation, following links, (cursing blind links,)
> and doing *lots* of experiments, I now feel able to
> ask a question or two.
> 
> What I would like to be able to do is, for example,
> 
>   cp gnome-docbook-template.sgml qqq.sgml
>   db2html qqq.sgml
> 
> and have it work. :-)
> 
> At this point I should mention that my Linux system
> is entirely self-compiled.  This means advising me to
> install <BrandName> package such-and-such isn't
> going to be helpful.  I don't install binaries.  Throw
> your hands in the air and walk away now if you like.
> 
> I have compiled and installed jade, as instructed in
> the GDP handbook.  *It* works I think.  At least
> it was able to run it on the little demo.sgml file that
> comes with the jade source tarball, and the output
> looked "well-formed" to me.
> 
> I have tarballs for the other things in the GDP
> handbook list of things to install, but some of
> their installation instructions are not very helpful.
> 
> In the case of sgml-common this means
> "completely absent".  The GDP's docbook-tools
> source tarball configuration script told me that a
> program related to catalog installation was missing
> and that I should therefore install sgml-common.
> Well the sgml-common tarball that I have contains
> ISO* files and a catalog but no scripts or programs,
> so I'm guessing we have a <BrandName> package
> I've-updated-the-package-but-not-the-tarball
> situation here.

My sgml-commmon RPM has 19 ISO* files (in /usr/lib/sgml), one shell script
called "install-catalog" (in /usr/bin), and sgml-common.cat (in
/usr/lib/sgml).  This sgml-common.cat looks similar to CATALOG (in
/usr/lib/sgml) - it appears to be the entries one puts into CATALOG for
the 19 ISO* files.

> Anyway, I persevered, and "installed" the
> docbook 3.1 DTD and the png-capable one in
> /usr/lib/sgml, where several other sgml directories
> already were.  (Actually, that's a link I created
> to /usr/local/share/sgml which already existed.)
> And this leads me to the problem...

Sounds good.

> The GDP handbook advises me to add a line to
> my system's (DTD/SGML?) catalog/CATALOG
> file for the png-capable DTD.  Well I don't know
> what that is.  Given that I'm the sys admin,
> chances are there isn't one :-)  Complaints from
> jade about not being able to find DTDs suggest to
> me that this is the problem. Where does jade look
> for catalog(s) by default? Nowhere (or nohow)
> obvious to me (and I have read its manual).

It looks like /usr/lib/sgml/CATALOG is roughly made
by taking all the *.cat files in /usr/lib/sgml and 
concatenating them together.  There are possibly some 
subtle points involved - I'm not sure.  I would suggest
trying this and seeing if it works.  You may also try somebody 
else's CATALOG file possibly.  I'll send you my CATALOG file
in a separate email so everybody else doesn't have to get it.

> Could some kind soul help me out here?  I think
> I just need someone to describe their own
> SGML-related directories and possibly what
> environment variables they have set.  The contents
> and location of a working catalog/CATALOG file
> would be particularly helpful probably.
> 
> Thankyou for your patience,

No problem :)

Dan