[m-users.] I'm back and I need help!

[David Overton]

Welcome back Ralph. I also have recently (well last year) returned to
Mercury after a couple of decades away.

Prince builds are using an ROTD from last February, this one in particular:
https://github.com/Mercury-Language/mercury-srcdist/releases/tag/rotd-2024-02-27
So installing that ROTD from source may be a good place to start.

David


On Sat, 13 Dec 2025 at 17:34, Paul Bone <paul at bone.id.au> wrote:

>
> Yes, the right thing to do would be install from source.
>
> As you noticed, those packages & instructions are for .deb based systems,
> and that's not Arch, it's Debian and Ubuntu.
>
> Good to see you again, good luck!
>
> On Sat, 13 Dec 2025, at 3:47 PM, Ralph Becket wrote:
>
> Hi everybody,
>
> After nearly a couple of decades using C# in industry, it looks like I'm
> coming back to Mercury!
>
> I'm trying to install Mercury under WSL on my home Windows box and I'm
> getting nowhere.  (Please forgive me if I come across a touch Forest Gump:
> even back in the day I only had half a clue about Linux admin.)  If anyone
> can offer advice, I'd be most grateful.  I've installed Arch Linux under
> WSL and I'm trying to install Mercury using the instructions at Mercury
> packages for .deb based systems <https://dl.mercurylang.org/deb/>
>
> Now Arch, it seems, uses something called 'pacman' to install things,
> whereas the instructions refer to 'apt'.  Okay, so
>
>
>    - I install 'apt', edit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mercury.list to include
>
>
> deb http://dl.mercurylang.org/deb/ DISTRO main
> deb-src http://dl.mercurylang.org/deb/ DISTRO main
>
>
>    - I run the weird GPG thing that the document tells me to do
>
>
>
>    - I run 'apt update' and then...
>
>
> [root at Herbert tmp]# apt update
> Ign:1 http://dl.mercurylang.org/deb DISTRO InRelease
> Err:2 http://dl.mercurylang.org/deb DISTRO Release
>   404  Not Found [IP: 45.56.89.38 80]
> Error: The repository 'http://dl.mercurylang.org/deb DISTRO Release' does
> not have a Release file.
> Notice: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is
> therefore disabled by default.
> Notice: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user
> configuration details.
> Notice: Missing Signed-By in the sources.list(5) entry for '
> http://dl.mercurylang.org/deb'
>
> At this point I'm so far down the rabbit hole of Things I Don't Care About
> While Recovering From The Flu that I'm here to call for help.
>
> Is the right thing to do now to try installing from the sources instead?
>
> Anyway, looking forward to re-connecting with everyone again!
>
> Cheers,
> Ralph
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