Re: Latest Octave for Ubuntu?

[Mike Miller]

On Wed, May 06, 2020 at 12:23:48 -0500, sshah wrote:
> I use AWS instances on the cloud to augment local Mac and Linux computing
> resources.  What are the pros and cons of using flatpak for octave-cli on
> ubuntu LTS compared to building from source?

The biggest pro is no need to compile and is very fast and easy to
install and update.

> In particular, does it allow
> installation of packages and creating your own .oct files?

Yes and yes. The main limitation here is the application confinement,
which means you can't run arbitrary system programs from Octave or link
with any library installed in /usr/lib, only what has been bundled in
the flatpak. Some packages, for example the 'gsl' package, require a
third party library, so those may need workarounds.

> How does flatpak
> compare with Homebrew in this regard? 

Homebrew for Linux is also a nice solution, and if you're already
familiar with it and it works for you, may be better for your use case.
How does it compare? Well, homebrew is not containerized, installs
individual bottles for each library, utility, and application, while
flatpak is containerized and only installs a runtime and an application
layer.

You can also easily install Octave with docker, guix, spack, and snap,
and each of these tools and packaging systems have their own use cases
and pros and cons.

Cheers,

-- 
mike

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