[BRLTTY] Shouldn't system requirements be in top-level directory?

[Lee Maschmeyer]

Hi all,

Recently I decided to build my own brltty from svn on Ubuntu. (I was 
ultimately successful.)

This is the first time I've done this on a system based on a single CD; 
always before I've used the Red Hat/Fedora systems that come on (the 
equivalent of) 4 or 5 CDs and provide a complete build environment if you 
install everything which I always have.

It was easy enough to figure out I needed to install subversion <grin> and 
tcl, especially with the hints provided by Ubuntu when you try to execute an 
unknown command. But when I reached the point where ./configure failed 
because "The C compiler cannot produce object programs" (possibly 
paraphrased) I was stumped.

So I figured that rather than just trying commands, what I ought to do was 
look up the system requirements.

But they were far too difficult to find. Fortunately the pre-installed 
version included the manual (though in a non-standard location: 
/usr/share/doc/brltty/English I think) and I found the requirements buried 
deep in there, but I think they need to be put into some kind of install 
file in the top-level directory, either at the beginning of README or 
somewhere equally obvious and accessible.

(The problem turned out to be that g++ wasn't installed if I remember 
correctly.)

Just an idea...

-- 

Lee Maschmeyer
Wayne State University
Detroit, Michigan, USA