binary distribution

[John W. Eaton]

On  7-Mar-2005, Stefan van der Walt <address@hidden> wrote:

| I would like to build a binary distribution of Octave to release in my
| lab.
| Is the "binary-dist" target the correct one to use?  It does not seem
| to work:
| 
| tar chf `cat .fname`.tar `cat .fname`
| tar: octave-2.1.cvs-i686-pc-linux-gnu/libcruft/libcruft.so.2.1.cvs:
| Cannot stat: No such file or directory
| tar: octave-2.1.cvs-i686-pc-linux-gnu/liboctave/liboctave.so.2.1.cvs:
| Cannot stat: No such file or directory
| tar: octave-2.1.cvs-i686-pc-linux-gnu/src/liboctinterp.so.2.1.cvs:
| Cannot stat:
| No such file or directory
| tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
| 
| All the files built successfully, so it looks like the libraries
| wern't copied to the appropriate directory.
| 
| Is there a script available which generates a list of files that
| should go in the distribution?  If I have such a list, I can build the
| archive manually (and then I can use any configuration options I
| choose, instead of the default "--enable-shared --enable-lite-kernel").

The binary-dist target is obsolete.  Probably it should be removed.
One way to do what you want is to install to a temporary directory,
then tar up the contents:

  PREFIX=/usr
  configure --prefix=$PREFIX [other options]
  make all
  make DESTDIR=tmp-inst-dir
  cd tmp-inst-dir
  tar czf bin-pkg.tar.gz .

To unpack the tar file, you'll need to do something like

  cd $PREFIX
  tar zxf bin-pkg.tar.gz

You should install the binary package $PREFIX because various
directory based on $PREFIX are compiled in to the Octave binary.

| What does "--enable-lite-kernel" do, by the way?

Nothing now.  It used to be a way to say that you wanted some of
Octave's core functions to be .oct files instead of compiled in to the
main executable, but now that is always done if you choose
--enable-shared.

BTW, since it seems you are using some variant of GNU/Linux, isn't
there a package already available for your distribution?

jwe



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