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popularizing Octave (was "windows version of Octave")
From: |
Mike Miller |
Subject: |
popularizing Octave (was "windows version of Octave") |
Date: |
Mon, 23 May 2005 13:52:20 -0500 (CDT) |
On Mon, 23 May 2005, Jonathan Stickel wrote:
I think there is partly a disconnect between users and developers here,
especially for windows users. Many new users want octave to "just work"
in windows, but I bet most developers and advanced users use linux.
After reading this list for a few years, I'm fairly confident of the
following conclusions:
(1) It is not easy for most people to get Octave and Octave-Forge running
on their system. This is especially true of the most recent releases.
(2) There are many ways to prepare and install Octave (depending on BLAS,
etc.) and this confuses people.
(3) Plotting is probably the trickiest thing to do within Octave.
If a "newbie" goes to this page...
http://www.octave.org/download.html
...he is confronted with a very large number of options. Even if he knows
that he wants the Windows version, he has three choices, but not a lot of
information on how those choices differ. The README.Windows file looks
like a very nice, step-by-step overview of the process, but look at how
long and involved it is:
ftp://ftp.octave.org/pub/octave/README.Windows
It is great to have many choices, but, at the same time, this large number
of choices is a hassle for new users to wade through. If we want more
people to use Octave, I think we should try very hard to make it easy to
get started. We should have a *single* recommended approach for new users
with a Windows system. It might still be a difficult install, but at
least they won't ask us which is best.
It is a lot of work, but if someone with expertise was willing to put
together a better introduction to installation issues, I think it would be
a huge help. It does seem to be a moving target and there are several OSs
to deal with, but if we want people to use Octave, we have to remove as
many barriers as possible.
By the way, I am still running Octave 2.0.14 on my old Solaris box because
everytime I tried to install a newer version it failed to compile. I may
be doing something wrong but I don't know what that is and it hasn't been
easy to get help.
Mike
-------------------------------------------------------------
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Octave's home on the web: http://www.octave.org
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-------------------------------------------------------------
- RE: windows version of Octave, (continued)
- Re: windows version of Octave, Dmitri A. Sergatskov, 2005/05/23
- Re: windows version of Octave, Keith Goodman, 2005/05/23
- Re: windows version of Octave, John W. Eaton, 2005/05/23
- Re: windows version of Octave, Keith Goodman, 2005/05/23
- Re: windows version of Octave, Keith Goodman, 2005/05/23
- Re: windows version of Octave, Jonathan Stickel, 2005/05/23
- Re: windows version of Octave, Doug Stewart, 2005/05/23
- Re: windows version of Octave, John W. Eaton, 2005/05/24
- popularizing Octave (was "windows version of Octave"),
Mike Miller <=
- Message not available
- Re: popularizing Octave (was "windows version of Octave"), Quentin Spencer, 2005/05/24
- Re: popularizing Octave (was "windows version of Octave"), John W. Eaton, 2005/05/24
- Re: popularizing Octave (was "windows version of Octave"), Doug Stewart, 2005/05/24
- Re: popularizing Octave (was "windows version of Octave"), John W. Eaton, 2005/05/24
- Re: popularizing Octave (was "windows version of Octave"), Quentin Spencer, 2005/05/24
- Re: popularizing Octave (was "windows version of Octave"), Doug Stewart, 2005/05/24
- Re: popularizing Octave (was "windows version of Octave"), Stefan van der Walt, 2005/05/25
- Message not available
- Re: popularizing Octave (was "windows version of Octave"), Keith Goodman, 2005/05/24
- Re: windows version of Octave, John W. Eaton, 2005/05/24
- Re: windows version of Octave, Paul Kienzle, 2005/05/24