Plastic SCM Editions
Q: Is there any issue with my repositories if I upgrade from the standard to the professional edition?
A: No, upgrade is automatically handled by the server on boot. Note, however, that once upgraded repositories can be no longer used with the standard edition.
Plastic SCM Installation
Q: What are Plastic SCM installation requeriments?
On Windows platforms: Microsoft .NET Framework is required. It's free and you can get it from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=262D25E3-F589-4842-8157-034D1E7CF3A3&displaylang=en
On other platforms: Mono software 1.2.4 or higher is required. It's free and you can get it from http://www.mono-project.com/Downloads
If you install Plastic SCM server on non-Windows platforms you will need to install Firebird Database SuperServer 2.x. It's free and you can get it from http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=files&id=engine_201
Q: I get an "Mono software required" error. What can I do?
A: You tried to install Plastic SCM and Mono software is not on your system. Download from http://www.mono-project.com/Downloads , and install it
Q: I have Mono software intalled on my machine, but Plastic SCM installer does not detect it.
A: Try to add Mono binary directory to PATH variable, restart console and launch installer again.
Q: I made a Firebird installation, but Plastic SCM installer does not detect it.
A: It means that Firebird service is stopped. Start it and launch installer again:
$ service firebird start (most common distributions)
Q: How can I launch a text-mode installation?
A: You can launch installer in text mode by using:
$ ./PlasticSCM-X.X.X.X-linux-installer.bin --mode text
Q: Where can I find Firebird password?
A: If you never changed Firebird password, it can be found on /firebidinstalldir/SYSDBA.password file.
Q: How can I start or stop Plastic SCM server on LInux manually? And how can I check the server´s state?
A: These operations can be done through a "plasticd" script:
./plasticd start (to start the server)
./plasticd stop (to stop the server)
./plasticd status (it shows the server state)
In distributions such as RedHat or Fedora this script can be executed through a service command:
service plasticd (start/stop/status)
Q: The 3D version tree is not working on my Linux distribution and my Mono libraries are properly set up. I get an error:
Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0"
A: You must check your X11 configuration
Oper X11 configuration file (for instance /etc/X11/XF86Config for RedHat Enterprise 3). If it contains the commented line
Load "glx"
Delete the comment (#) and restart X server (just by restarting your session)
Q: The 3D version tree is not working on Linux. It complains about libGL library.
A: The mono installation doesn't have the TaoGL libraries correctly set.
Edit the file config inside your mono installation directory. It should be located under etc/mono directory (remember, not /etc but the etc inside mono).
Add the following lines:
<dllmap dll="libGL" target="libGL.so.1" os="!windows" />
<dllmap dll="opengl32.dll" target="libGL.so.1" os="!windows" />
<dllmap dll="glu32.dll" target="libGLU.so.1" os="!windows" />
Q: When the server is trying to start I get the following error "No such file or directory"
A: This error appears when glib 6 or further libraries are installed. The followins steps must be taken:
- Open a shell as root
- Execute touch/etc/default/nss
- Delete the server folder databases (such as /opt/PlasticSCM/server/*.fdb)
- Restart Plastic server (for instance /opt/PlasticSCM/s)
Plastic SCM Usage
Q: Why 'Get latest version' operation from Visual Studio takes a lot more time than the equivalent 'Update' operation in Plastic GUI?
A: This happens when several files are being updated. Visual Studio sends one request per file, whereas Plastic GUI is capable of grouping all requests together and tune the server query. This is a design behavoir of Visual Studio. Plastic SCM wil improve performance on this operation on future releases.
Q: I'm having trouble setting up a web project to work with version control from within Visual Studio. Can you help?
A: Putting Web projects under version control from Visual Studio is bit tricky. The good news is that, once the projects are correctly set up, further interaction with the version control is completely seamless. You can find detailed instructions on the whitepaper "Setting up Visual Studio Web Projects with Plastic SCM".
Q: I work with Visual Studio Web projects. I have created a new directory on a branch. When I switch to another branch the directory is marked as .removed by Plastic because it has been unloaded, but then I have problems compiling my project.
A: You're using the Visual Studio Web Developer profile. The .csproj model normally used by Visual Studio is ignored when working in this mode, and then VS tries to compile every file in a certain directory tree. That's why files under the .removed directory are included.
Please read the following documents from Microsoft, which now discourages this working model:
Q: I've just added my code to Plastic in a workspace. Then another developer creates a new workspace on his machine, but it is empty. How can he see my code?
A: Tell the other developer to update his workspace. The code will be downloaded. If it doesn't happen: are you sure all the elements are checked in at your workspace? Consider directories too.
Q: I've merged some branches back into the main branch on my machine. I've finished the merge but other developers working on main can't see the changes.
A: Have you checked in the merged files and directories? Plastic keeps files and directories checked out after a merge operation so that you can easily revert undoing the checkouts if needed.
Q: Regarding the repository and multiple projects, does my team need to have a separate repository for each project?.
A: It all depends on your company´s working method. You could set up a single repository for all projects or use several repositories, one for each project.
Q: Does Plastic provide the option of sharing files between different projects?.
A: Yes, this can be specified as a branching or even a repository pattern: you can have "shared" components on a separate repository that will be mounted together with the project one.
Q: Does Plastic SCM support specific file branching behaviour?.
A: Yes, you can do that using the selector, which is the mechanism selecting what is downloaded into a certain workspace, and how checks outs and actual branching are done.
Q: Can you set up labels so that they can be used for multiple projects?
A: You can if they are in the same repository. If they are on different repositories you will need to create labels on each of them, but of course they can share the same name.
Q: Can I create a label with nothing attached to it, so that another developer can later attach his check-ins to the label?.
A: Yes, this is the usual way of working with Plastic; you first create the label and then you apply it to the files of directories.
Q: I've created a child branch from the mainline. I modify two files: "one.txt" and "two.txt" to float between the mainline and the child branch, so both the mainline and the child branch have version two of the file, but I would like "two.txt" to branch on change, so that the changes made to the file are in the child branch, but are not floated to the mainline.
A: It is not a good idea to have the file changes being automatically propagated between branches because a change, even a small one, introduces the risk of breaking something, so you should move it (through and integration).
Database backends
Q: How can I change the default location where repostories are stored?
A: By default, repositories are created on the server installation folder. In order to change it, you need to create a file named "db.conf" on the server installation folder, with the contents:
<DbConfig>
<ProviderName>firebird</ProviderName>
<DatabasePath>your path here</DatabasePath>
</DbConfig>
Replacing with your path. Note that the new folder must exist. you can move your existing repositories by stopping the Plastic server, creating db.conf, moving all files with FDB extension in your server intall dir to the new dir, and starting the server again.
Q: What is the procedure to backup the firebird database?
A: You can just copy *.fdb files on server installation directory or the path you specified to store databases. Normally you need to stop the plastic service to do so. You can automate the process on a bat file with net stop / copy / net start.
Integrations
Q: Has Eclipse plug in any kind of dependency?
A: If your Eclipse version is Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers you need to be aware of the following dependencies:
* org.eclipse.jdt.core
* org.eclipse.jdt.core.manipulation
* org.eclipse.jdt.debug/
* org.eclipse.jdt.launching
* org.eclipse.jdt.ui
