Installing Sapling Parameters very confusing on a fresh install.

[EricStanek]

Describe the issue

During a fresh PIVX install, the user will need to set up the Sapling Parameters.

The user does not know this, but is informed when they first try to execute the pivxd file.

The message is then:

$ Error: Cannot find the Sapling parameters in the following directory:
"/home/estanek/.pivx-params"
Please run 'sapling-fetch-params' or './util/fetch-params.sh' and then restart.

However, neither of these 2 files exist in the tar ball downloaded.

The file install-params.sh does exist, but it must be executed in the same folder it exists in, by the user installing a wallet for their account. Some users (like myself) store apps in /opt, or in this case, /opt/pivx. There is no instructions explaining that this is the file to execute, or from which folder should be executed.

Ideally, if the sapling parameters are missing, the pivx wallet should know to create them. But, I suppose this creates an issue in some cases.

What version of PIVX Core are you using?

v5.5

Machine specs:

• OS: Ubuntu 22

[skironDotNet]

Since the wallet work in user context anyway I think it wouldn't hurt if GUI downloaded Sapling Parameters as part of wallet start, unless there was some intent for the users to exec fetch-params.sh themselves, but I think fetch-params.sh is just a psychological leftover from the way ZCash was doing things.
Or the GUI could check if params exists on each start and display a popup asking user "would you like params to be downloaded or would you like to run fetch-params.sh yourself" but at the end it doesn't matter who download the param, the user must trust either going or fetch-params.sh script

[Fuzzbawls]

the installation reqirement and proceedure are documented in the README that is included in the linux tarballs.

[Fuzzbawls]

further explination: the params only need to be installed when using the linux tarballs and windows manual zip files. Windows installers, macOS, and linux dbm/snap installs all handle this for you. it is only linux manual installs and windows manual installs that require extra effort...which is doccumented in the respective downloads.

[EricStanek]

The Linux tarball downloaded from the PIVX.org website, has a single README.md in it, which is the README for the GitHub page. There are no installation instructions in that README.

This means the person doing the manual install misses that step, and when initially executing pivxd, they are prompted with instructions to execute 2 files that also were not included with the tarball and also do not appear to exist in the repo.

If you search thru the GitHub repo, there is another README.md in the /doc folder. It states;

"If this is the first time running PIVX Core (since v5.0.0), you'll need to install the sapling params by running the included install-params.sh script, which copies the two params files to $HOME/.pivx-params"

However, there is no mention of the fact that the install-params.sh script must be executed from the directory where it exists, and if executed from elsewhere, it returns an ambiguous error.

This is all very confusing for a person doing a manual install. I get it may be an edge case, but noting that exchanges and other partners often install manually, we should endeavor to make the process much more clear.