INSTALL.txt missing from tbb21_017oss_lin.tgz ?

[johnhenning]

The Open Source Documentation Getting Started GuidesaysBefore you begin, make sure you have successfully installed Intel Threading Building

Blocks on your machine. Otherwise, install it according to the instructions in

INSTALL.txt.

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any such file:

$ cd /tmp
$ mkdir tbb
$ cd tbb
$ gunzip -c ~/tbb/tbb21_017oss_lin.tgz | tar xf -
$ ls
tbb21_017oss
$ cd tbb21_017oss/
$ ls
CHANGES  COPYING  README  bin  doc  em64t  examples  ia32  include  itanium
$ find . -name '*inst*'
$ find . -name '*INST*'

The README is not useful: it refers to a file that doesn't exist in this directory:

$ cat README 
Threading Building Blocks - README

See index.html for directions and documentation.

If source is present (./Makefile and src/ directories),
type 'gmake' in this directory to build and test.

See examples/index.html for runnable examples and directions.

See http://threadingbuildingblocks.org for full documentation
and software information.
$ ls index.html
ls: cannot access index.html: No such file or directory
$ 

There are other directories that *do* have an index.html, but I don't seem to be spotting one that explains installation. Did someone forget to package INSTALL.txt with the kit?

[johnhenning]

This useful advice from feb. 2008http://www.threadingbuildingblocks.org/ver.php?fid=96should be carried forward with more recent kits.

These are the download files for the 017 commercial aligned release. The sources and binaries correspond exactly to the commercial Intel TBB v2.0 product-update 017 (for Linux*, 018; for Mac OS* X, 016) packages. The tbb20_017oss_src package contains the sources; always download and untar this first. The tbb20_017oss_{lin,win,mac} packages contain add-on binaries for Linux*, Windows*, or Mac OS* X; to use these, download and untar them, and move any desired {ia32,em64t,itanium} directories into the untarred source package, adjacent to the {build,include,src} directories there. [emphasis added]

The more recent releases don't mention that you need to download both; in fact, the current makes it sound like it's optional ("If used together with one of the binary packages" [emphasis added]) http://www.threadingbuildingblocks.org/ver.php?fid=138

Note that the root problem of this thread - no such file as INSTALL.txt - remains unresolved. However, I'm a lot closer to having it working now that I've downloaded both packages :-)

[johnhenning]

If I were INSTALL.txt, here is an outline of what I might say:

1. unpack source
2. unpack binary
3. set the environment variable
4. point a browser at the directory where you unpacked(*)
5. make info
6. make test

Of course, it would be useful to say these with a bit more detail, including, for example, how to interpret the results of "make test". I assume (1) that silence=success, and (2) that I don't have to worry about:

./test_concurrent_vector_v2.exe 1:4
Warning: grow_by is pathetically slow: t2==0.0672286 t128=0.113812

but it would be nice if the docs validated both of these assumptions.

(*) There is a bug in the top level index.html which I will enter a separate note about.

[Alexey-Kukanov]

Thanks for pointing out the issues.

Since TBB is distributed as both open source and commercial product, there are pieces of it only relevant to commercial product and not distributed in the OSS packages, or distributed separately (as the PDF docs). For example, INSTALL.TXT describes install procedure in the commercial packages that is irrelevant to OSS TBB.

Nevertheless you are correct in the points you made; definitely we could do something better than just leaving orphaned links.