Re: popularizing Octave (was "windows version of Octave")

[Doug Stewart]

Quentin Spencer wrote:

> John W. Eaton wrote:
>
> > ...
> > No, this will not be perfect, but it will be a lot less effort than
> > anything else I can think of, so we can have something useful soon.
> > Then we can worry about making it better with packages for ATLAS,
> > FFTW, HDF5, UMFPACK, etc., and making the installation even simpler.
> > But at least people will have a current version of Octave to use while
> > we are doing all of that.  All it really will require is for someone
> > (or better, some group) to build the Cygwin package and upload it to
> > the Cygwin site.  You'll also need to become enough of a member of the
> > Cygwin community that they will accept the package.  This means
> > joining and reading a mailing list, and being responsive to building
> > new packages in a relatively timely fashion.  See
> > http://cygwin.com/setup.html for more details about becoming a Cygwin
> > package maintainer.
> >
> > To make things a bit easier, I have some scripts for building cygwin
> > packages that you can use to get started.  Eventually, maintaining the
> > package should be as simple as
> >
> >  * download a new version of Octave
> >
> >  * run a single script to build the new package (in most cases this
> >    will simply work; occasionally there may be problems to fix)
> >
> >  * upload the package to the Cgywin site
> >
> > but even so, I can't be the one to do this regularly.  We need some
> > volunteers.  So if you really want to see Octave on Windows improve,
> > this would be a great place to start.
> >  
> It's important to note that because of the number of different 
> platforms that octave is used on, John has not provided binaries of 
> octave for several years (I think I recall he used to). Right now it's 
> very easy to get Octave running on Debian Linux precisely because a 
> group of volunteers has taken over the task of building packages for 
> the community. I'm working on doing the same for Fedora Linux, and 
> hopefully if the same thing happens for Cygwin, this will ensure that 
> a large majority of octave users have an easy way of keeping up with 
> octave releases.
>
> I realize that while the cygwin setup procedure, while 
> straightforward, requires more "clicks" than many Windows users are 
> accustomed to. However, 


As a windows person and a prof who expects his students to use Octave I 
would like a windows version
where the user(student) does not even know about cygwin. We need a 
version that you click a button to install, then you click a button to 
run, and then you learn and use Octave. Andy Adler's 2.1.42 is like what 
I want

I see that some want a cygwin environment and the ability to do 
modifications etc.

maybe we need two different windows versions
1) for those that want to play with cygwin.
2) for those that want octave as a tool to get their work done.

This second group I think is much larger than the first group.
I am a computer literate person and it is taking me a lot of effort to 
try and get a windows version the way I want it. I would never expect my 
students to go through any of the learning curve of cygwin. Yes if they 
were learning computer systems this would be part of the course, but 
they just want to use Octave.

I am not complaining, just giving my viewpoint. I am working on it and I 
will succeed, I just don't know when.:-)
Doug Stewart

> I agree with John that a regularly updated Cygwin package is better 
> than the current state of confusion about octave for windows. Another 
> thing to consider is that if you look at Debian, Fedora Extras, and 
> Cygwin, I think some type program that updates an entire system when 
> needed is the direction that the free software world is moving, 
> because there are many more programs and dependencies than one person 
> can easily keep track of.
>
> -Quentin



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