Getting closer to a "normal" distribution from a minimal build

Internals
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1

github.com/racket/racket has two principal ways of building:

  • running make from the root of the repository with appropriate additional flags (e.g. make unix-style PREFIX=<dir> as documented in build.md)
  • running make from racket/src, which produces a more "minimal" than a "Minimal Racket" (e.g. via the instructions in build.md or in the more documented racket/src/readme.txt)

When building minimal racket, indeed, it is minimal; for example, the CLI-based REPL (i.e. invoked via racket or racket-cs) does not have keybindings available such as the ability to move forward a word with [alt]-[right arrow].

Is there any documentation, besides reading source, on how to make a minimal distribution, well... non-minimal?

I am particularly interested in making the CLI-based REPL behave more like a "normal" build if a full explanation would be quite involved to offer.

2

Oops, just to clarify. I do see that one can run raco pkg install -i racket-lib as documented in racket/src/readme.txt.

The thing that confuses me about this is two things:

  • isn't this installed globally already if I have an installation of racket managed by my distribution's package manager?
  • I think I'm still seeing the REPL act in a minimal-like fashion (e.g. the [alt]-[left key] not working example mentioned above)
3

For the REPL, you need xrepl and (optionally?) expeditor. I can’t recall which packages those are in, but the online docs will tell you.

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