Compiling CLISP

The latest clisp version (2.42, from 2007-10-16) should be good enough for StumpWM. Version 2.41 was too buggy.

You should link CLISP with the module new-clx. The documentation mentions also mit-clx, but new-clx is better: is faster (written in C), requires no fiddling with your X setup (re -nolisten-tcp), and it supports StumpWM's timers. So use new-clx. (In case you prefer mit-clx, you don't need CLISP >=2.42; just rebuild your LISP with mit-clx instead of new-clx).

The installation steps to follow are:

Check that you have the prerequisites for CLISP: libsigsegv, libiconv, libreadline, gettext. Also: pcre, pcre-devel.

Download the sources from sourceforge[1] and follow the "unix/INSTALL" file:

    ./configure ---prefix=/where/you/do/want/it/installed --with-module=clx/new-clx \
                --with-module=rawsock --with-module=pcre --build build

If you want to change config.lisp, pass --edit-config to the above configure command. Now copy everything to the prefix you said:

    cd build; make install

Then you can try to execute the program "clisp" and it should work.

Correcting CLISP to support cl-ppcre

If you try to compile stumpwm now, it will fail because it can't find a package named cl-ppcre. (This is as of October 2007 with the CVS version of stumpwm and a CLISP from CVS). Therefore you should install cl-ppcre.

Preferably, install cl-ppcre from your distribution's package manager; that's easier. If you can't, follow these steps:

• download it from http://weitz.de/cl-ppcre/ --- Direct link: http://weitz.de/files/cl-ppcre.tar.gz
• execute the program "clisp" which was compiled at the last section
• write there: (load "/path/to/cl-ppcre/load.lisp") with the correct path
• there should be no errors. You can test cl-ppcre-test by using (cl-ppcre-test:test).
• another test: Close clisp, open it again and issue (cl-ppcre-test:test).
• PROBLEM: after closing clisp and opening it again, (cl-ppcre-test:test) doesn't work. ("No package found with name cl-ppcre-test"). That means it wasn't correctly installed... Following the instructions of the README file doesn't work: (mk:compile-system "cl-ppcre") says "no package named MK" and the asdf section isn't good explained and doesn't work.
  • A solution would be if CLISP included by default asdf. Then you could install other software (like cl-ppcre) easily like the apt-get of Debian. More for that: see http://wiki.alu.org/ASDF_Universality

Note that stumpwm now builds properly with clisp. In the configure script you must tell clisp where to find cl-ppcre.

To do:

• explain why the clisp pcre module[2] is not good enough.

Getting ASDF and ASDF-INSTALL working with CLISP

The default CLISP install does not come with the wonderful ASDF and ASDF-INSTALL but it's real easy to set up. Let's start with ASDF.

Step 1: Grab asdf.lisp from http://cclan.cvs.sourceforge.net/cclan/asdf/. I'll pretend we stored it in ~/cl/asdf.

Step 2: ASDF uses the variable *CENTRAL-REGISTRY* to keep track on just where your asds are stored, this needs to be set. Also ASDF needs to be loaded - preferably each time CLISP is started. So in ~/.clisprc.lisp we add

(load #p"/home/foo/cl/asdf/asdf")

(push #p"/home/foo/cl/systems" asdf:*central-registry*) ; Feel free to add more paths.

All done! On to ASDF-INSTALL.

Step 1: Grab ASDF-INSTALL with

    foo@host:~$ wget http://common-lisp.net/project/asdf-install/asdf-install_latest.tar.gz

Step 2: Unpack asdf-install to somewhere out of the way.

Step 3: Make a symlink.

    foo@host:~$ ln -s /where/you/unpacked/asdf-install/asdf-install.asd /home/foo/cl/systems/ (or whereever you put the *central-registry*)

Step 4: Fire up clisp and evalute the following:

    (asdf:operate 'asdf:compile-op 'asdf-install)
    (asdf:operate 'asdf:load-op 'asdf-install)

Then, if there are no errors...

(quit)

Step 5: Add the following to your .clisprc.lisp:

#-:asdf-install (asdf:operate 'asdf:load-op :asdf-install)

Optional step 6: Install cl-ppcre:

    foo@host:~$ clisp
    ...output...
    [1]> (asdf-install:install :cl-ppcre)

...and then add "(asdf:operate 'asdf:load-op :cl-ppcre)" (without the quotes) to .clisprc.

That should do it!