This is the toplevel README to LilyPond		-*-Text-*-


GNU LilyPond which converts music definition files into visual or
audio output: it can typeset formatted sheet music in TeX and 
and (mechanical) perfomances to MIDI files.


1. VERSIONING

if you have downloaded a

	*.pre*

version, then this is version is *not* meant for producing nice output
(but to keep your patchsets up to date). It might not even compile.


2. REQUIREMENTS

For the compilation and running of LilyPond you need some additional
packages. The most unusual one of this are the mf sources to
MusixTeX. Please refer to the installation instructions on how to
obtain and install them.


3. INSTALLATINON

For your convenience, a formatted copy of the INSTALL instructions are
in the toplevel directory, as INSTALL.text


4. DOCUMENTATION

Please refer to the directory Documentation/ for the real doco.

To generate the pretty-printed docs, you have to run configure first,
and then do this:

	make doc

You can also simply read the .pod sources. They are ASCII text. 
.pod is the documentation format of perl (see perlpod(1))


5. COMMENTS

LilyPond is a long way from finished and polished. I do appreciate
criticism, comments, bugreports, patches, etc. Please send e-mail to
the mailing lists. See Documentation/links.pod for more info 


6. DOZE

If you have received this file as part of a DOS/Window32 distribution
(lilypond-*.zip ), then it is advisable to also download the source
package, since it might contain more documentation

	ftp://pcnov095.win.tue.nl/pub/lilypond/ (Europe)
	ftp://alpha.gnu.ai.mit.edu/gnu/lilypond/ (US)

The website also contains the complete documentation

	http://www.stack.nl/~hanwen/lilypond/index.html



7. CAVEATS

Solaris

Stack frame overwrite on Solaris 2.x (this will produce a seg
fault, signal 11).  Stacktrace

	Engraver_group_engraver::Engraver_group_engraver(int)
	Score_engraver::Score_engraver( )
	get_group_engraver_p()

We don't know a fix or workaround, but compiling without optimisation
might help (Without -O2 optimisation, my execs run fine on Solaris;
without -O2, but with purify, it dumps core)


Linux (intel)

LilyPond occasionally crashes while parsing the initialisation files.
This is a very obscure bug, and usually entering the commandline
differently "fixes" it.

	lilypond input.ly 

and

	lilypond -I. ./input.ly 

makes a difference

Typical stacktrace:

	SIGSEGV
	__libc_malloc (bytes=16384)
	?? ()
	yyFlexLexer::yy_create_buffer ()
	Includable_lexer::new_input (this=0x8209a00, s={strh_ = {
		:


I get bitten by this every once in a while, and I am very interested
in hints what might be wrong.
