[phenixbb] matplotlib

[Donnie Berkholz]

On 11:06 Thu 18 Aug     , Nathaniel Echols wrote:
> > This is yet another example of why the standalone installation 
> > approach is ideologically objectionable on modern Linux.  But of 
> > course, the practical advantage gained by not having to package the 
> > software for any possible OS flavor/version users may choose 
> > outweighs the lower risks of package incompatibility and the reduced 
> > size of the packaged product.
> 
> We don't have the resources to support a more ideologically pure
> distribution mechanism - the installers are maintained by me and Ralf in
> between other projects.  Also, we often depend on new features in the
> various dependencies that would not be immediately available through the
> package managers (for instance, we switched to Python 2.6 almost immediately
> because I needed the multiprocessing module).  There are many things in the
> current installers that I'm unhappy with, but they don't take very much time
> to maintain, which is essential.

If this is something people are deeply interested in, they can write 
their own packages for various distributions. The main problem is that 
scons is a horrible "build system" (if it even merits the name) for the 
purposes of Linux distribution packaging. It's too customizable to 
behave in nonstandard ways and not modifiable on the command line, so it 
requires significant acrobatics to work well. Redistribution is another 
problem due to license issues, but that's solved easily enough by simply 
not redistributing the final rpm/deb/etc but only the .spec file or 
equivalent.

-- 
Thanks,
Donnie

Donald S. Berkholz, Ph.D.
Research Fellow
James R. Thompson lab, Physiology & Biomedical Engineering
Grazia Isaya lab, Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine
Mayo Clinic
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200 First Street SW
Rochester, MN 55905
office: 507-538-6924
cell: 612-991-1321
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