Re: Packaging Octave for Windows and OS X (was: writing integer with fwrite)

[Joe Koski]

on 12/14/04 9:49 AM, John W. Eaton at address@hidden wrote:

> Likewise, for those who would like to have current versions of Octave
> available on OS X in a more timely fashion, I think the best strategy
> is to help with the Fink project.  I don't know the details of the
> Fink packaging system (isn't it dpkg based?) but it seems that it
> should be possible to reduce the effort of making a package to the
> point of transferring some files and running a script.
> 
Some personal observations. The Fink project has at least two major issues
that need to be resolved before it is useful to the casual user. First, the
"stable" releases are usually very old, and the "unstable" release and
octave-forge have to be built from source with the fink supplied make file
equivalents (no time saving). Second, fink is not as user friendly as a UNIX
make file, especially if you are trying to install "unstable" items.

With fink you are fighting for server connection time with people
downloading OpenOffice, games, gimp, etc. There is one poor harried person
who tries to answer the multitude of new user questions, and that person
usually just points to an unrecognizable FAQ on the large list. There is
also the issue of installing and managing the fink software on your system
in their separate /sw directory of files, where programs are compatible with
each other, but often incompatible with stuff that lives in /usr and
/usr/local.

Another personal opinion. Since Linux and OS X share gcc, gnu make, and
(more recently) the bash shell, creating a make file that would work for
both sytems should not be that difficult. Admittedly, Apple doesn't help by
constantly tweaking gcc and OS X to get ready for 64 bit computing (Tiger).

The common Linux/OS X make file approach for the "you probably want this
one" versions of octave and octave-forge on sourceforge would be my vote for
a "Mac friendly" installer of octave.

Joe

> jwe
> 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> Octave is freely available under the terms of the GNU GPL.
> 
> Octave's home on the web:  http://www.octave.org
> How to fund new projects:  http://www.octave.org/funding.html
> Subscription information:  http://www.octave.org/archive.html
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> 




-------------------------------------------------------------
Octave is freely available under the terms of the GNU GPL.

Octave's home on the web:  http://www.octave.org
How to fund new projects:  http://www.octave.org/funding.html
Subscription information:  http://www.octave.org/archive.html
-------------------------------------------------------------