Re: INSTALL file

Greetings,

* Andreas 'ads' Scherbaum (ads@pgug.de) wrote:
> How about the attached one? Picked up your draft, and cleaned it up a bit.

(unsurprisingly) this is looking pretty good to me.

A few additional notes:

> PostgreSQL Database Management System
> =====================================
>
> This directory contains the source code distribution of the PostgreSQL
> database management system.
>
> PostgreSQL is an advanced object-relational database management system
> that supports an extended subset of the SQL standard, including
> transactions, foreign keys, subqueries, triggers, user-defined types
> and functions.  This distribution also contains C language bindings.
>
> PostgreSQL has many language interfaces, many of which are listed here:
>
>     https://www.postgresql.org/download

Honestly, I don't think the above link makes sense when we're saying
"here's where to go to download language interfaces."  We could maybe
link to https://www.postgresql.org/download/products/2-drivers-and-interfaces/
instead, but that link is really pretty messy, imv.

Instead, I'd just move the 'Download' section that's at the end up to
here.

> Building on Windows
> ===================
>
> Detailed instructions for building on Windows is available here:
> https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/install-windows.html
>
> To build PostgreSQL on Windows, either Visual Studio Express 2017
> for Windows Desktop or Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 (or later) should be
> installed.  PostgreSQL can also be build using MinGW or Cygwin using
> the Unix instructions.

The above should say "can also be built", not "build".

> Initializing your Database
> ==========================
>
> Once the PostgreSQL software is installed, the first step to having a
> running database is to initialize a PostgreSQL database using the
> 'initdb' command, eg:
>
> initdb -D /path/to/mydatabase

We probably shouldn't say 'eg' but should use language similar to what
we say above, which would be "run this command" or so.

> Where '/path/to/mydatabase' is the directory where the database is
> going to be installed. This directory can exist, but must be empty.
> If it does not exist, 'initdb' will create it.
>
> After the database system has been initialized, PostgreSQL can be
> started by using the pg_ctl command:
>
> pg_ctl -D /path/to/mydatabase -l logfile start
>
> Once PostgreSQL is running, you can connect to it using the psql
> command-line client.  A default database called 'postgres' was created
> by 'initdb'.

I didn't include a full path intentionally, simply because paths look
different between Unix systems and Windows.  That said, I don't think
it's a big deal either way.

> Building the PostgreSQL Documentation
> =====================================

I've been going back and forth on this, but it seems like building the
documentation should maybe be above the Initializing a database..?  I
could go either way on it.

> Download
> ========
>
> The latest version of this software may be obtained at
> https://www.postgresql.org/download/.  For more information look at our
> web site located at https://www.postgresql.org/.

I'd suggest we change this to be something like:

The latest version of this software, both in source code form and as
binary packages for many platforms, may be obtained at
https://www.postgresql.org/download/.  For more information please visit
https://www.postgresql.org/.

Thanks!

Stephen