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Re: binary packages
From: |
Dirk Eddelbuettel |
Subject: |
Re: binary packages |
Date: |
Sun, 15 Feb 2004 08:25:28 -0600 |
User-agent: |
Mutt/1.3.28i |
Paul,
Great email!
On Sun, Feb 15, 2004 at 01:14:27AM -0500, Paul Kienzle wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Sometimes I suggest to people that they should try
> octave+octave-forge for doing something, and I would
> like the process of trying it to be as painless as possible.
> Up to date binary packages maintained for various
> operating environments would help enormously.
>
> Debian:
>
> Dirk does a wonderful job of keeping the octave
> and octave-forge Debian packages up to date.
> We need equally dedicated folks for other platforms.
There is also the currently less wonderful job with
octave-sp which few people use it, and I got too little help
from A.S. Hodel when I needed it, so the package
lingers -- this really should get refactored into
octave-forge
libinline-octave-perl which may need a maintenance release, but
again too few people know and use this
and then there are the script (non-binary) packages
octave-ci where the remaining functions should get factored
into octave-forge
matwrap standalone tool for C/C++ wrapper generation, possibly
overlapping with mex in octave-forge
octave-epstk standalone, can probably stay that way.
Also, let's not forget Rafael's excellent work with
octave-gpc
octave-plplot
octave-statdataml
which he also keep current.
Now, while we're at the topic of wishlists, I would like someone else to
join Debian and share the maintainership with me. I have put enough work in
over the years to not drop this like a hot potato into the lap of a random
Debian developer, so I'll wait some more.
But the fact is that I have stopped to use Octave on a regular basis, and
that is not a good basis for excellence in package maintenance. And that
really is what we're shooting for here.
Interested parties for this sub-task should feel free to mail me on- or
off-list.
Dirk
> Fedora:
>
> Hopefully this will evolve into something as successful
> as Debian is at providing a central place for getting
> useful software without pain. I understand it is also
> apt-get based.
>
> octave-forge/admin/RPM has spec files for octave-forge.
> I don't know where the spec files for octave reside, but
> they could also reside there. Then it is a matter for
> someone from the Fedora community to periodically
> build the packages. This should be a painless process
> since Dirk and the Debian build process will have already
> worked out many of the system architecture issues.
Well, there may also be distro specific toolchain issues to work through.
> Red Hat 9,8,7, Suse, Mandrake:
> Do we need separate spec files and builds for these
> systems, or will the Fedora build suffice? If fedora is
> insufficient, is there a community site people trust where
> we can put platform specific builds? If not, we can always
> put them on the octave-forge site, along with dependencies
> that are unavailable in the base systems (e.g., gnuplot, fftw,
> hdf, ...).
>
> Windows 98, 2000, XP:
> Two approaches here: one is a cygwin package approach,
> the other a separately installed binary. My own preference
> is for a separately installed binary which can optionally
> install into an existing cygwin environment. A number of
> base packages must be integrated into the windows build,
> particularly qhull (for geometry toolbox), ginac+cln+gmp
> (for symbolic), fftw (for faster fourier transforms), hdf5 and a
> pluggable replacement for lapack+blas so that we can
> supply separate atlas-enhanced builds for various architectures.
> A lot of the work is done, it just requires a dedicated person
> to spend a month or so improving the build, then a bit of
> time each release to build a new package.
>
> Mac OS X 10.2, 10.3:
> Similar to windows, there are presently packages for fink,
> for darwinports and standalone in various states of
> repair. My own preference is again for a standalone
> binary which doesn't depend on much else so that getting
> someone up and running is simply a matter of dropping
> the binary package somewhere in the Applications directory
> and dragging it to the dock. Again a lot of work needs to be
> done on sundries to make sure the OS X package can use
> qhull, ginac, fftw, hdf5, etc. I don't know if we need separate
> binaries for 10.2 and 10.3. I don't know if veclib is always
> available and sufficient, or if we need to support a variety
> of Atlas-enhanced libraries. I don't know if there is a standard
> place where the community can post such binaries, or if
> octave-forge is the best place to host them.
>
> IRIX, SunOS, Solaris, HPUX, AIX, ...
> These systems are comparatively rare and tend to have
> savvy administrators who don't mind the occasional
> ./configure; make; make install. Unfortunately octave
> requires --enable-shared on ./configure in order to get
> octave-forge to work, so this process is not as easy as it
> could be. Also, gathering the prerequisites (qhull, ginac,
> fftw, hdf5, etc.) can be challenging. If interested parties
> want to keep up-to-date binaries for these systems, they
> can certainly live beside the Windows packages on octave-forge.
>
> Getting all these binary packages into shape and keeping them
> up to date is much too big a task for anyone who only works on
> Octave in their spare time. Fortunately, we have a community
> of users on various systems eager to volunteer! So how about it?
>
> Paul Kienzle
> address@hidden
>
>
>
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>
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>
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