LYNX-DEV Porting lynx: where to start?

[Albert S Woodhull]

I am interested in porting lynx to a new OS (well, Minix, which is not 
new, but which is now available in a new version (2.0.0) which ought to be 
capable of supporting lynx on a 386-based machine).

A month or two ago I got hold of the 2-6 code and started lurking on the 
lynx-dev list. I have put some effort into trying to compile lynx, but so 
far have not succeeded. But I am getting closer.

Subscribing to lynx-dev is producing information overload, however. I had 
thought 2-6 was a mature distribution, but there are such an overwhelming 
number of problems and patches described, that I am losing hope that when 
I finish dealing with all the compilation problems I will have a working 
lynx.

My question is: given that I am trying to make lynx work on a new OS,
would I do better to fall back to an older version?  Or is there some
place I can find a document that describes a known working configuration
of a lynx distribution and *necessary* patches? 

It seems that a lot of the lynx-dev discussion is about making lynx
respond to features of unusual sites, or features supported by advanced
versions of other browsers. My immediate objective is much simpler: Minix
itself has a fairly simple httpd, and during the development of this
server it was tested periodically with older versions of lynx, so by and
large I expect any page posted on a Minix-based server will be
lynx-friendly. For my purposes it would be a good start to get a Minix
lynx client running that could reasonably be expected to handle a page
supportd by the Minix httpd server. This probably means a lot of optional
bells and whistles could be let out. Looking at the lynx code I have,
however, it is difficult to decide how this translates into configuring
lynx. 

As a suggestion: it seems that there are a lot of people contributing to
lynx. There is too much information! It would be useful to me, and I
presume to others, if someone would do a periodic post that would
summarize the current status of lynx and point out exactly what is needed
by a person like myself, trying to get a minimal lynx working on a
previously unsupported OS. Or perhaps such a document already exists, but
I don't know where to find it? 

 --------------------------------
 Albert S. Woodhull
 Hampshire College, Amherst, MA     
 address@hidden   
 http://minix1.hampshire.edu/asw/

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