Re: additional packages

[Thomas Treichl]

Ben Abbott schrieb:
> On Friday, February 29, 2008, at 03:52PM, "Thomas Treichl" <address@hidden> 
> wrote:
> > Ben Abbott schrieb:
> > > > Hhmmm... Ben, what exactly do you mean by "messy conflict can arise" - this 
> > > > sounds to me like you can't use Fink packages anymore if Octave.app is installed?
> > > >
> > > > Fink doesn't know anything about Octave.app even if it is installed and 
> > > > therefore Fink can't use any of Octave.app's libraries. Octave.app doesn't use 
> > > > Fink's libraries but uses it's own (Octave.app brings all the necessary 
> > > > libraries needed to run on its own and doesn't install anything anywhere else on 
> > > > a user's harddisc). Fink shouldn't modify files that hard on a harddisc either, 
> > > > isn't it?
> > > >
> > > > So where do that messy conflicts arise? My knowledge is that people using 
> > > > Fink-Octave and Octave.app both on one and the same machine can use both without 
> > > > conflicting or damaging each other (maybe they can't use Octave.app and 
> > > > Octave-Fink at the same time)...
> > > >
> > > > This actually is a feature of a standalone application *.app from my point of 
> > > > view that doesn't work if somebody mixes distribution installations?!
> > > >
> > > >   Thomas
> > > I'll qualify my prior comment with "I haven't actually tried installing Octave via 
> > > Fink and via a standalone version at the same time".
> > >
> > > Based upon what I've read from others, my understanding is that conflicts can 
> > > arise if different versions of octave, different version of gnuplot, and/or 
> > > different versions of aquaterm are installed at the same time.
> > ... that are all found somewhere on your common system paths (at least bin path 
> > and lib path), right. Octave.app isolates from system paths - that's why Fink 
> > doesn't see anything from Octave.app - and Octave.app uses it's own system paths 
> > - that's why Fink doesn't conflict Octave.app.
>
> Do you mean to imply that Octave.app includes installations of gnuplot and 
> aquaterm and that these are isolated from Fink, and that if these are installed 
> via Fink (and are version that are incompatible with Octave.app) that there is 
> no problem?

Correct. If Octave.app finds Gnuplot.app in /Applications then always 
Gnuplot.app is used - you can install so many gnuplots as you want somewhere 
else on your Mac, they are all ignored. Further, Gnuplot.app includes an 
installation of AquaTerm and (should - and I'm only 99.9% sure here because of 
this AquaTerm.framework thing) always uses that AquaTerm and no other one. And 
like I wrote to Carlo in the other mail, I expect starting two versions of 
AquaTerm.app at the same time won't work...

A problem may appear if (and it currently seems to me that AquaTerm-Macports 
makes some settings like this) a system variable or something like this is 
defined on somebodys Mac, eg. GNUTERM=UnsupportedBackendOrSo (like we had 
somewhere else on the lists) then also Gnuplot.app doesn't know how to handle 
this and fails...

> I don't know the answer to that, but have assumed that would be a potential 
> problem.

Well no, it should not be a problem like I wrote between Octave.app and 
Octave-Fink, *but* yes it definitely may become a big problem if you install 
Octave-MacPorts beside Octave-Fink (same libs in different system paths: /sw/lib 
(for Fink, correct?) and /usr/local/lib (for MacPorts correct?) )...

> > > The different versions of octave shouldn't be a problem unless ~/.octaverc 
> > > includes path information.
> > ... right, then we really would have a problem (like we had in the discussion 
> > with the savepath command that overwrites .octaverc). But even packages can be 
> > handled correctly if we have Octave-Fink and Octave.app installed, this time if 
> > we use the -global option for pkg.m, then Octave-Fink packages should go 
> > somewhere into /sw/... and Octave.app packages should go into 
> > /Applications/Octave.app/...
>
> The global option will work fine provided the versions of Octave are compatible 
> with the packages, correct?

Correct.

> Personally, I'd like to be able to run different versions of Octave at will. 
> Can I do that by installing Octave bundles?

What do you mean by installing Octave bundles?

  Thomas