

PIMPPA Frequently Asked Questions; or "good questions", 
rather. Keep 'em coming, honeybunnies! :)

Contents

1. COMPILATION PROBLEMS
  1.1 "./configure" can't find mysql/suck/uudeview/gnome?
2. USAGE PROBLEMS
  2.1 My news server sends more articles/bytes than I/pimppa can handle!
3. GENERAL ISSUES
  3.1 Why don't you use "PostgreSQL"?


1. COMPILATION PROBLEMS

1.1 "./configure" can't find mysql/suck/uudeview?

  Do you have the packages correctly installed? If yes,
  I'll just have to admit that writing universal "configure.in" 
  for autoconf is an artform at which I'm not very good at. I 
  happily receive all fixes to configure.in you send me.

  For more info, see
  
  http://www.gnu.org/manual/autoconf/html_mono/autoconf.html
  

2. USAGE PROBLEMS

2.1 My news server sends more articles/bytes than I/pimppa can handle!

  In the case of a new group, pimppa takes all available articles,
  which can on some servers total to over 10000 pieces (actually
  there's no upper limit), and result in over 2GB size of temporary 
  file, which confuses pimppa. Until I get access to a server 
  that gives me that much stuff on one run, I'm not too interested 
  in fixing this.

  Meanwhile, you can manually set p_groups table field
  g_last to -NUMBER instead of 0 or a positive number.
  NUMBER will be the max amount of newest messages you 
  wish to download on next leech time.

  e.g.
  sh> mysql -u root -p
  mysql> USE pimppa; alter table p_groups CHANGE g_last g_last int(10) DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL;
  mysql> UPDATE p_groups SET g_last=-100 WHERE g_name='alt.test';

  You can punch in a shell script of the last line for daily use,
  see "scripts/" for scripting examples.


3. GENERAL ISSUES

3.1 Why don't you use "PostgreSQL"?
  
  Mainly, I started out with MySQL.

  I took pains to install postgresql v7.0.2 and browse through
  the various manuals, and found out the following:

  - Changing to postgresql would mean to alter almost every single 
    file in the PIMPPA code. 
  - Mostly the changes would be "mechanic", e.g. just manual labour
  - Postgresql provides more of the SQL standard features than MySQL
    does, like foreign keys, constraints and subselects. Good!
  - Coding for MySQL seems a bit more straightforward and simple
  - There's no bitwise operators (AND,OR,XOR) in postgresql. I would
    have to convert the current integer flag fields to several
    boolean fields. Users would have to do alter tables on every
    upgrade that I come up with some new flag.
 
  So, though postgresql is "less proprietary"(?) than mysql, I don't
  see the change of engine worth all that work. Perhaps I wish I 
  would have started pimppa with another db manager, but its been
  ages already.

  If things ever get uncomfortable on MySQL side, I can always
  reconsider. Meanwhile, PIMPPA is GPL'd software, anyone can 
  take it and turn it into a postgresql version -- or whatever.
  I don't see gain in the splitting though, I'll gladly take on
  developing a postgresql version, if somebody takes it to the 
  similar usability stage that pimppa is on now with mysql.



