Hi Dag, On Wed, 4 May 2011 00:51:56 -0700 (PDT) dagss <d.s.seljeb...@astro.uio.no> wrote:
> I don't really have a say in this, but I've given this a lot of > thought since I decided to drop Sage as my scientific Python > distribution a year ago and have been searching for a new one ever > since. > > My problem with Gentoo in general is that it solves the problems that > SPKGs have by adding complexity (in the same way any Linux distro > does). > > I much prefer something like Nix (http://nixos.org), where Eelco > Dolstra instead had a new, brilliant idea which just makes simple > things powerful. I wrote these notes up on using Nix for a scientific > Python distribution (including Sage): > > https://github.com/dagss/scidist/blob/master/ideas.rst > > (I may be interested in putting in work in this direction...) Robert posted a link to your notes here at some point. I also saw the thread on the gentoo-alt mailing list where you asked about using prefix for a scientific software distribution. Especially after reading your notes, I seriously considered using Nix as well. Nix is based on a beautiful idea, but it doesn't really reduce the complexity. We want more features from the build system, this will naturally add complexity. When I first started out using Gentoo, I thought it was a beautiful and simple extension of the BSD ports system. I admit that I am biased since I am already very familiar with Gentoo. But I like the fact that build scripts are written in bash. Knowing that it has been field tested and most of the quirks that might come up in package management are already worked out also makes me lean toward Gentoo. I am willing to spend time on this, but I don't want to spend time fixing a package manager. The items you list in the "Needed work" section of your notes already look like writing a package manager from scratch. The last ticket (#6) about soft dependencies shows that the Nix approach of installing every package in a separate directory and linking directly to the files in that directory is not really useful either. BTW, you could use the gentoo package manager to replicate a previous version of your tree with using binary packages (you can make these even after you are done installing the ebuild). There seems to be code for something like this already: http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Demerge > But of course, Gentoo has a scientific community etc. etc. which Nix > sort of lacks, so I can definitely see Gentoo making more sense for > you. This is the strongest argument that makes Gentoo attractive. It justifies the effort to switch to their package format. Since then, we won't have to worry about manually updating spkg's ourselves. Francois is always reporting how a more recent version of a package works perfectly with Sage. This is simply because Gentoo gives him those packages for free on his sage-on-gentoo install. I would be very happy to see a discussion about the pros and cons of this approach. I know I sort of skipped over the SEP step Georg wanted. :) Thank you for the feedback. Burcin -- 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
