INSTALL

Ok, I've finally taken the time to replace the generic default installation
instructions with my own more specific ones, so now we should cover all
architectures.

/Tord
BladeEnc Maintainer


Windows (using Visual C++):
===========================

1. Create a new, empty "Win32 Console Application" project.
2. Add all the .C and .H files from the folder "bladeenc" to this new project.
3. Compile. You should now have a working binary.

NOTE!:
Some older versions of Visual C++ have been known to generated degraded
versions of BladeEnc, generating bad output. This might no longer be an issue
due to changes in BladeEnc, but in order to be sure, follow the quality
test steps at the end of this file.


All UNIX systems (Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, AIX, UnixWare, HPUX etc)
===================================================================

Use the normal procedure of "./configure", "make" and "make install".

That is:

1. Uncompress the tar.gz archive.

2. Step into the bladeenc directory.

3. Type "./configure", wait for the script to finish. BladeEnc is by default
   installed to /usr/local/bin which may not be in your path --many unixes
   (including Linux distributions like RedHat) do *not* put /usr/local/bin in
   your path by default.

   If that's the case, either put /usr/local/bin in your path or install to
   /usr/bin instead by typing "./configure --prefix=/usr".

4. Type "make" and watch BladeEnc being built. Ignore any warnings.

5. As root (use "su" to switch to root if you're not), type "make install".

BladeEnc should now be correctly installed on your system.


Alternatively you can on some systems (tested on Linux) just go to the bladeenc
subdirectory and type:

gcc -O3 -o bladeenc *.c -lm

( -lm might be necessary on some systems, but might give you problems on others,
test without if it doesn't work).


BeOS (i386 & PPC):
==================

Go to the bladeenc subdirectory and type:

gcc -O3 -o bladeenc *.c


OS/2
====

First you need to change the SYSTEM-define in system.h to IBM_OS2 (if somebody
can patch system.h to autodetect OS/2 I will be gratefull).

Then you can (hopefully) use the supplied Makefile.os2 to build on OS/2. 
If the makefile is out of date, either fix it and send me a patch or
just follow the instructions for other architectures below.


Other architectures / compilers:
================================

If your architecture is listed at the top of system.h it is supported (or at
least supposed to be, it can be temporarily broken) and should be able to
create an executable using any good compiler following these easy steps:

1. Change the SYSTEM-define in system.h to reflect your architecture.
2. Compile all .C files in the bladeenc-subdirectory into an executable
   using whatever compiler you prefer. Hopefully it works.



Quality test:
=============

Some compilers (including certain revisions of both Visual C++ and GNU C) have
been found to generate degraded versions of BladeEnc if optimizations are
turned on. To be sure that you don't have any quality degradation, follow these
easy steps:

1. Compile BladeEnc without any optimizations enabled (in VC++: use "debug").
2. Encode a sample (at least 10 seconds) with the unoptimized BladeEnc.
3. Compile BladeEnc using all optimizations you want.
4. Encode the same sample, using the same settings with this optimized
   BladeEnc.
5. Compare the generated mp3-files using any kind of file comparison programs
   or checksum programs. The files should be 100% identical.

As far as I know has no compiler generated a degraded BladeEnc when
optimizations are disabled.