From bug-request at octave dot org Thu Nov 24 09:59:41 2005 Subject: Re: trigonometric and hyperbolic functions From: William Poetra Yoga H To: bug at octave dot org Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 07:58:32 -0800 (PST) --- "John W. Eaton" wrote: > On 24-Nov-2005, William Poetra Yoga H wrote: > > | --- "John W. Eaton" wrote: > | > | > I'd rather not do that, since it is more work for us to include > | > external packages in the distribution. Should we also include copies > | > of ATLAS, fftw, ufsparse, etc.? > | > > | > | But Octave doesn't depend on those... If we make Octave use GSL > | functions (as in being dependant on GSL for core functions), we > | could do this (or better, the alternative I say below). > > Yes, it does. Without them, you can't have full functionality. > You can't build Octave at all without some version of blas+lapack > (though we do currently include the reference blas+lapack, but you > really should be using ATLAS instead). > Well... Since GSL includes BLAS and can use ATLAS if need be (GSL doesn't need to be relinked to use ATLAS, if I understand the docs correctly)... >>> (continuation below) > | > Yes, Octave does currently include some external software, but I'd > | > like to minimize that if possible, and perhaps even eliminate some of > | > the things that are currently included. > | > | Well, what about only making it a requirement for those who build > | from source, and provide a statically linked binary for those who > | don't want to compile from sources? > > Binary for what platform? Distributing binaries is something that is > better handled by people who build packages for various systems. > Oh, sorry, I didn't know you don't like distributing binaries :-P I don't, but some projects do, so I thought you wouldn't mind ;) Anyway, then the package maintainer for the distro / the maintainer for the OS should provide the GSL dependency. For people who want to build from scratch, they're on their own (like us?). > | Using GSL can slim Octave down, for example by replacing functions in > | libcruft/blas (well, not everyone uses ATLAS...). > > What are the reasons for preferring the GSL lapack+blas implementation > over ATLAS? > >>> it can make do for installations without BLAS (it just uses the included CBLAS), and it can also use the system's BLAS (if installed). Since we depend on BLAS and LAPACK anyway, why not just use GSL (just 1 library) and provide an option for users who wish to use LAPACK? IMO, GSL is quite portable, so portability is not an issue here. Also, it's stable now (I think I read something about unstable API in the archives), and I think the API wouldn't change much, so we can just use it and not worry about Octave suddenly breaking due to an API change in GSL. William Poetra Yoga Hadisoeseno __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------