On Feb 15, 12:23 pm, "Dr. David Kirkby" <david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote: > kcrisman wrote: > >> R's spkg-install needs an overhaul, as noted in my previous email (which > >> It > >> seems to have invalid options, invalid comments, and various other issues. > >> It > >> would appear we could potentially get better performance too, at the cost > >> of > >> installing other libraries. > > > If you could point those out explicitly on the new ticket you created, > > that would be awesome. > > Actually, I think I should create a new ticket, for > > "R's spkg-install needs a good overhaul" > > or something like that, as the ticket I created is very specific to the iconv > code. The problems with R's spkg-install appear to go far beyond that. > > > With regard to the R graphics ticket, does Solaris automatically (or > > Linux, for that matter) have Xwindows support? > > Solaris supports X. There is a directory /usr/include/X11, which has loads of > X > related files. However, R's spkg-install has these 7 lines of code: > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > # I have problems with this on OSX Intel 10.5.1 -- for now just turn it off. > # It will be good to get something fully working before worrying about X. > if [ -f /usr/include/X11/Xwindows.h ]; then > XSUPPORT=yes > else > XSUPPORT=no > fi > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > I don't have the file /usr/include/X11/Xwindows.h on my Solaris boxes, so X is > disabled. I noticed sage.math does have that file, so I assume X is enabled on > Linux (at least on sage.math). > > The fact the problem mentioned in spkg-install appeared to have been on OSX > Intel 10.5.1, has not stopped someone disabling X on every platform if > /usr/include/X11/Xwindows.h does not exist. > > I don't know if the file /usr/include/X11/Xwindows.h is mandatory for R to > support X. >
See the ticket about R graphics (don't have the # in front of me) for an update on this, and a link to an spkg. However, I know nothing about X; the current spkg changes things to use quartz for Mac and continue to look for this file for Xwindows. Any comments you have about graphics-specific things like this you should put on that ticket. > It strikes me that packages get updated, and nobody actually looks *carefully* > at what implications that update might have. In this case, the update broke > the > build on Solaris, has useless options, patches that might not be needed, and > might be undesirable .... etc. > Yes, please let us know about the other stuff (problems not related to iconv or X) on a new ticket. <unrelated-to-R> But in response to the other comments, the reality is that often someone updating an spkg needs the new functionality on a few platforms, and knows very little about configuration and/or other platforms. If it doesn't break something on currently supported platforms, we seem to go with upgrades. If we had an easier way to do it automatically, that would help a lot, as we've both mentioned before. I certainly know there is no way I would every contribute to Sage if I needed to test things on Solaris, Linux, Mac, and Cygwin; I barely have the time to do it on Mac for patches, and Mac and Linux for spkgs. </unrelated-to-R> Thanks for your valuable help on this stuff! It will make Sage so much more stable long-term, I think. - kcrisman -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
