From help-request at octave dot org Tue Dec 14 11:44:23 2004 Subject: Re: Packaging Octave for Windows and OS X (was: writing integer with fwrite) From: Joe Koski To: "John W. Eaton" , Andy Adler CC: Octave Help Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:45:47 -0700 on 12/14/04 9:49 AM, John W. Eaton at jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu wrote: > Likewise, for those who would like to have current versions of Octave > available on OS X in a more timely fashion, I think the best strategy > is to help with the Fink project. I don't know the details of the > Fink packaging system (isn't it dpkg based?) but it seems that it > should be possible to reduce the effort of making a package to the > point of transferring some files and running a script. > Some personal observations. The Fink project has at least two major issues that need to be resolved before it is useful to the casual user. First, the "stable" releases are usually very old, and the "unstable" release and octave-forge have to be built from source with the fink supplied make file equivalents (no time saving). Second, fink is not as user friendly as a UNIX make file, especially if you are trying to install "unstable" items. With fink you are fighting for server connection time with people downloading OpenOffice, games, gimp, etc. There is one poor harried person who tries to answer the multitude of new user questions, and that person usually just points to an unrecognizable FAQ on the large list. There is also the issue of installing and managing the fink software on your system in their separate /sw directory of files, where programs are compatible with each other, but often incompatible with stuff that lives in /usr and /usr/local. Another personal opinion. Since Linux and OS X share gcc, gnu make, and (more recently) the bash shell, creating a make file that would work for both sytems should not be that difficult. Admittedly, Apple doesn't help by constantly tweaking gcc and OS X to get ready for 64 bit computing (Tiger). The common Linux/OS X make file approach for the "you probably want this one" versions of octave and octave-forge on sourceforge would be my vote for a "Mac friendly" installer of octave. Joe > jwe > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------- > 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 > ------------------------------------------------------------- > ------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------------