The Stable 3.7 Universe is a Package Universe based on Squeak 3.7 Basic, and including about 200 packages that were contemporary on SqueakMap at the time 3.7 Basic was finalized. The following file has an image and changes file based on this universe, along with a fully populated cache of all packages in the universe:
Making of 3.7u1 has details on how this image was formed, for those who want the nitty gritty. 3.7u2 is the same image except that the universes toolkit has been updated.
This image is a useful for two important groups of people:
Newbies to Squeak, who want to see what Squeak is like. They can click on the projects and have them reliably load. Further, they don't care whether they have the newest packages available – they are happy to play with the most popular ones.
Application developers. If you are writing a program in Squeak, as opposed to working on Squeak itself, then you would like to have a stable baseline to start from. This image is perfect: it is well defined and all the packages load successfully.
No More Changes
As of April 9, 2005, no changes are planned. If you click "update" in a 3.7u1 Universe Browser, it won't work. That's normal; everything will still work fine.
June 5, 2005: 3.7u2 posted.
Known Bugs
If you see a bug in the stable 3.7 universe, post it here. Most bugs are not going to be fixed. However, major showstopper fixes will be included, and basic dependency entries will be fixed when possible.
Other Thoughts
Hi. I read the sentence "The 3.7 stable universes is not even available via the 3.7u1 image, and thus attempts to "update" the universe in a 3.7u1 image will fail" 3 times without being truely sure I understood it. Can you improve the explaination. What I think this says is that there is a thing called 3.7 stable universes which is different from 3.7u1 stable universes but the rest of the meaning is lost to me. I can figure out what 'update the universe' refers to. And the distinction between universe and image is unclear. Thanks in advance for your help – wiz
You're right–it was badly written. I've tried to improve it a little, mostly by deleting some stuff! Just download the image and try it out. It's easier to try it than to talk about it. -Lex Spoon