
$Id: XCLIENT.INSTALLATION.README,v 1.1 1998/04/17 18:15:52 mieg Exp $

The xclient is a new acedb application presented
during the 1997 worm meeting in Madison.

Running the client on a Unix machine, you construct
on your local machine an acedb database which gets its
data transparently from some acedb server. Once the
database is constructed, and if the network breaks, you
can keep running in local mode.

The system is very fast once the data is loaded, because 
it runs locally. The performances are far superior to those
of webace. 
It appears equivalent to a local installation of the full acedb
but you do not need much disk space and you do not have
to download the update files.
You stay always in contact with the most recent data.

------------------

The installation is very simple, you must download the 
package 
  bin.yyy.xclient.tar.gz
where yyy is your machine (solaris, dec etc)
install it by:
  gunzip -c  bin.yyy.xclient.tar.gz | tar xf -

and then configure your client to connect to the relevant
server by the command:

  bin/INSTALL.xclient

if you type return to get the default answer on every question
you will connect to the Montpelleir C.elegans server

-------------------

Note to system managers:
  the script dace_remote is an example of a wrapper used in
SaintLouis. This script runs INSTALL.xclient without asking
any question to the user and install his client in a subdirectory
of /tmp

 This script presuppose that the exact path to all executables is
known and that the correct server is known. 
You should edit it to your needs.

-------------------

General warning:
  Acedb is a disk intensive program. It is of utmost importance to run
the executable off a local disk, A disk which appears as a /dev/r..
when you run the Unix command df (the simplest command to learn what
actual hardware disk you are connected to).

  In fact, despite the network traffic, it is faster in a given building,
to run the server on a local disk of a server machine and to run the client
on a local disk of the user machine, than to run directly from the final
user machine on the nfs-mounted distant server disk.
  This is why the dace_remote script tries to use /tmp as the client disk
since, independently of how the home directories of the people are configured
/tmp is always local to the machine you are actually working with.

  But do not forget to install the acedb server as a daemon using a local
disk of the server machine.

J.T-M, dec 97



