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Author Topic: RESOLVED: LHA and Directory Opus issues  (Read 4069 times)

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Offline outlawal2Topic starter

RESOLVED: LHA and Directory Opus issues
« on: September 07, 2020, 01:48:07 AM »
Good evening!

Building a classic system from scratch, 3.1.4 and installed lha.run and verified that the files unpacked to the C location as required but when I try to run LHA commands they fail.  Also, I thought I might install DOPUS hoping that it would fix any issues with LHA during install but when I try using the button to unarchive it errors out stating unknown command.

Any ideas what is wrong here?

EDIT: Looks like you need to rename one of the files to LHA for LHA to work. Renamed the 68040 file to LHA and it works now
« Last Edit: September 09, 2020, 03:56:25 PM by outlawal2 »
 

Offline Matt_H

Re: LHA and Directory Opus issues
« Reply #1 on: September 07, 2020, 03:32:58 PM »
What’s the error message upon failure?
Also remember that LhA_e138.run (I assume that’s the version you have, from Aminet) is old. Basically, you should only use it to extract the current LhA (http://aminet.net/package/util/arc/lha_68k) as a replacement.

Or if you have another (fully configured) machine just copy LhA over from that.
 

Offline scuzzb494

Re: LHA and Directory Opus issues
« Reply #2 on: September 09, 2020, 01:39:56 AM »
When you say classic system, what computer are you talking about? Maybe I missed it.

Run SnoopDOS in the background and it will tell you what is failing.

Open the SHELL and type LHA and see if it opens the command listing that tells you how to use LHA.  The file should be just LHA not sure what other files there are. In C there should be the Tool.. LHA.

If you download a DOpus config file from Aminet like say BlueDopus and copy the config to your DOPUS/s drawer, you will not only get the unarchive but also the LHA archive button and many more. I assume also you assigned DOPus to whereever you put it.

https://www.scuzzscink.com/amiga/scuzzblog_september20_1/car_sbd_050920_33.jpg

https://www.scuzzscink.com/amiga/scuzzblog_september20_1/car_sbd_050920_20.jpg

Chicken and egg ....

https://www.scuzzscink.com/amiga/scuzzblog_september20/scuzzblogdseptember20_0501.htm

No idea what copy of DOPus you have but if its like the one that came with CU Amiga disk 100 then DOpus already carries a copy of lha in its own C drawer. Just copy it to your workbench C drawer. There really is no reason on earth why Dopus shouldn't see its own lha file.



Offline outlawal2Topic starter

Re: LHA and Directory Opus issues
« Reply #3 on: September 09, 2020, 03:55:30 PM »
Thanks for the help guys appreciate it.

I am always amazed at how difficult it seems to be for people to document clearly.  If you install LHA.run and run the self-extractor as instructed, it will unpack a handful of files along with a readme that goes on for pages regarding HOW to use LHA.  What the readme fails to include is the fact that LHA is not one of those files and that to actually make it work you have to rename one of the files that ARE unpacked...

So I renamed the 68040 file to LHA and it now works.
One simple line in the readme stating that you need to rename one of the files would really have been appreciated.
<smh>

And for the record, I am a Manufacturing Technician that supports Windows from XP all the way to Windows 10 along with Windows servers, VMWare and NAS disciplines. I also dabble in Linux and Mac as well so I am not a noob here.  As a guy that spends a lot of time authoring training documentation of processes and procedures for my company I am appalled at the lack of coherent and complete documentation found on the Net.  And to be fair this is not an Amiga thing, Linux documentation is pretty terrible as well and causes a lot of pain when it isn't necessary.  I can only imagine how many people give up on classic Amigas simply because they can't figure it out due to lack of decent documentation.  Sad really
 

Offline Matt_H

Re: LHA and Directory Opus issues
« Reply #4 on: September 09, 2020, 05:46:14 PM »
As a guy that spends a lot of time authoring training documentation of processes and procedures for my company I am appalled at the lack of coherent and complete documentation found on the Net.  And to be fair this is not an Amiga thing, Linux documentation is pretty terrible as well and causes a lot of pain when it isn't necessary.  I can only imagine how many people give up on classic Amigas simply because they can't figure it out due to lack of decent documentation.  Sad really

Agreed! I think I've bemoaned this situation a few times as well. I feel like it's especially problematic on the OS4 and MorphOS side, which I think is at least partially responsible for why those platforms haven't taken off as they should. We can be an insular group, we Amigans, assuming that other users know what we know, so it's important for us to take a pause and recognize that may not always be the case and that the only way to grow the community is to make it accessible to newcomers. Credit where credit is due, though: the MorphZone library has become a pretty good (if little-known) resource more recently. And I think @olsen is one of the best documentation writers on the planet.
 

Offline outlawal2Topic starter

Re: RESOLVED: LHA and Directory Opus issues
« Reply #5 on: September 09, 2020, 07:01:08 PM »
I really thought I would get flamed for that post so thanks for letting me know I am not the only one..
When I started looking at the Amiga again (After literally decades without one) I thought I would try to fix some of these issues but they are so rampant I could spend my life trying to fix other peoples documentation and gave up.

Maybe I should look at that again and post some instructions on some of this stuff to ease the pain that a newbie feels..
In my spare time!
 
 

Offline Matt_H

Re: RESOLVED: LHA and Directory Opus issues
« Reply #6 on: September 09, 2020, 11:06:03 PM »
As I see it, a challenge for the community is to overcome this general indifference to documentation, this feeling that documentation isn't necessary because things are obvious or "not important enough".

[Getting a little more off topic here...]
But that's still a far better position to be in than outright hostility to documentation. I used to write corporate process/procedure documentation, too, until the head of my department decided it was a waste of resources and threw out the entire effort--including everything already written. Surprise! All our procedures broke down, no one knew who had decision-making authority, and the company nearly bankrupted itself.

So I'm a big believer in the importance of documentation :)
 

Offline outlawal2Topic starter

Re: RESOLVED: LHA and Directory Opus issues
« Reply #7 on: September 10, 2020, 01:48:37 PM »
I had a similar situation that I use to explain corporate stupidity.  Not documentation per se, but the same kind of thing.  Company I used to work for  (I stress USED TO WORK because this example is one of many that forced me to look elsewhere)  Anyway, we had a database for our data center that had the machines, serial#s exact locations etc of every machine in our data center, several thousand servers in all.  We could go to that dbase and lookup a server and it would show us what room, Row, Rack and exact location IN that rack so we could find our servers to work on them.  It was effing beautiful.  Took about 5 years to accumulate that in formation and it worked amazingly well. 

Then we were bought out by another larger company.  They came in and saw how we had our data center setup and since we had such nice racks and were setup so well, we made them look bad. (They had all of their servers stacked up one on top of another 10 high with no racks and all sitting on those metal shelf systems like you would see in a tire warehouse. I kid you not!

Since it looked bad to have our data center look so much more professional than theirs, one weekend they had one of the maintenance men (Who had ZERO business being in our datacenter in the first place) go in after hours and remove all of the doors from the servers and THROW THEM AWAY.  That way it at least LOOKED more like their setup did.  Problem is that all of the labels that were used to locate the machines were on those doors so in less than a day they had destroyed the dbase that we had taken years to complete.

And let me tell you, finding servers from that day on was a nightmare.  I quit not long after that mess..  When they removed all of the high speed fibre we had run and replaced it with the older slower fibre they were using.  Yeah, I was out of there.  <smh>
 

Offline Matt_H

Re: RESOLVED: LHA and Directory Opus issues
« Reply #8 on: September 10, 2020, 06:04:40 PM »
If you're any level of Star Trek fan, I highly recommend this Twitter account for managerial inspiration/aspiration. :)
 

Offline outlawal2Topic starter

Re: RESOLVED: LHA and Directory Opus issues
« Reply #9 on: September 10, 2020, 08:01:49 PM »
Some pretty good stuff there! 

My wife is a mid-high level Manager at a big insurance company and I can tell you that seeing what she goes thru and hearing the stories and watching how HARD she works to help her folks and to do the right thing..  It has made me a better employee and a better person.  I am not as quick to assume incompetence as I used to be simply because now I know some of the difficulties Managers have to face and it ain't pretty!

THAT is one of many reasons why I will let my wife be the excellent Manager that she is, and I will continue to be a good tech guy / single contributor as I want NOTHING to do with the hassles that she has to work on a daily basis!