--- a/README.Linux	Sat Dec 14 16:31:56 1996 +0000
+++ b/README.Linux	Sat Dec 14 19:12:45 1996 +0000
@@ -1,16 +1,24 @@
 Since July 1996, most work on Octave has been done using a
-Linux/GNU system.
+Linux/GNU system, and a number of people who regularly test Octave
+snapshot releases also primarily use Linux/GNU systems.
 
-If you have trouble compiling or running Octave on a Linux/GNU system,
-it is very likely that the problem is with your system, or your
-installation of the compiler and libraries, and not with Octave
-itself.
+However, I have recently started to receive a significant number of
+reports from people who say that they can't compile or run Octave on
+Linux/GNU systems.  In nearly every case, the problem has turned out
+to be that the compilers or libraries have not been installed
+properly.  I suspect that this often results from a botched upgrade,
+or from attempting to install the compilers from the standard source
+distributions.  But in some cases, the cause has been a buggy Linux
+distributions.  Many of these problems go unnoticed because much of
+the software for Linux is written in C, not C++.
 
-For example, if you can compile Octave, but it crashes with a
-segmentation fault right away, you probably have incompatible versions
-of libc and libg++ installed, or you have a version of the dynamic
-loader, ld.so, that is incompatible with your versions of the
-libraries, or both.
+Octave compiles, but it won't run
+---------------------------------
+
+If you can compile Octave, but it crashes with a segmentation fault
+right away, you probably have incompatible versions of libc and libg++
+installed, or you have a version of the dynamic loader, ld.so, that is
+incompatible with your versions of the libraries, or both.
 
 On my development system, I am using the following software:
 
@@ -23,20 +31,54 @@
   * ld.so 1.7.14
 
 I know from experience that the versions listed above seem to work
-well together, but they may not work for you, because if you have a
-newer version of the kernel, you may need a newer version of the C
-library.  Other than that, I don't have time to keep up with all the
-various library versions (life is much too short for that), nor do I
-know which combinations are supposed to work together.  That sort of
-information should be clearly stated in the release notes for the
-libraries.  If it is not, please ask the maintainers of the libraries
-to clarify the documentation.
+well together.  But if you have a newer version of the kernel, you may
+need a newer version of the C library.  I don't have time to keep up
+with all the various library versions (life is much too short for
+that), nor do I know which combinations are supposed to work together.
+That sort of information should be clearly stated in the release notes
+for the libraries.  If it is not, please ask the maintainers of the
+libraries to clarify the documentation.
+
+Octave won't even compile
+-------------------------
 
 If you can't compile Octave, you should first check to see that your
 compiler and header files are properly installed.  Do you have
 multiple versions of the g++ include files on your system?  Are you
-sure that your copy of g++ is finding the right set (compiling a short
-program with g++ -v will tell you the search path)?
+sure that your copy of g++ is finding the right set?  You can find out
+by compiling a simple C++ program with -v:
+
+bash$ cat foo.cc
+#include <iostream.h>
+int main (void} { cerr << "yo\n"; return 0; }
+
+bash$ g++ -v foo.cc
+gcc -v foo.cc -lg++ -lstdc++ -lm
+Reading specs from /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i486-linux/2.7.2/specs
+gcc version 2.7.2
+ /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i486-linux/2.7.2/cpp -lang-c++ -v -undef ...
+#include "..." search starts here:
+#include <...> search starts here:
+ /usr/lib/g++-include
+ /usr/local/include
+ /usr/i486-linux/include
+ /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i486-linux/2.7.2/include
+ /usr/include
+End of search list.
+...
+
+If the location of your include files is not listed in the search
+path, then you might be able to fix that with a symbolic link.
+However, if your version of libg++ was not compiled with your current
+version of gcc, you are likely to run into more trouble.
+
+Upgrading your compiler and libraries
+-------------------------------------
+
+Finally, installing libg++ on a Linux system is not as simple as it
+should be, because libg++ shares some basic I/O code with the Linux C
+library, and they must be compatible.  You should get and read the
+release notes for the compiler and libraries.
 
 John W. Eaton
 jwe@bevo.che.wisc.edu

--- a/README.Windows	Sat Dec 14 16:31:56 1996 +0000
+++ b/README.Windows	Sat Dec 14 19:12:45 1996 +0000
@@ -20,7 +20,8 @@
 
 * On Windows 95 systems, there is a bug that causes redirections to
   /dev/null to fail.  You can work around the problem by substituting
-  /dev/nul for /dev/null in all of the files that use it.
+  /dev/nul for /dev/null in all of the files that use it.  (This
+  problem is fixed in the b17.1 release of the tools.)
 
 * You will need to have f2c and libf2c.a or g77 installed.  You can get
   a copy of f2c from ftp://netlib.att.com/netlib/f2c.