Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Officially recommended version?

[Tom Rondeau]

On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 5:07 PM, Alexandru Csete <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 5:09 PM, Marcus D. Leech <address@hidden> wrote:
>> On 09/16/2013 10:40 AM, Alexandru Csete wrote:
>>>
>>> Greetings,
>>>
>>> I've been going nuts over the past few weeks why new users end up with
>>> gnuradio 3.6. Clearly, some of them want to use some funky stuff that
>>> has not yet been ported to 3.7, but there are also others who are just
>>> clueless and end up with 3.6 by following the instructions.
>>>
>>> Indeed, according to
>>> http://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki/InstallingGR
>>> The recommended way to install is the build-gnuradio script and this
>>> script installs the latest 3.6 release. There is no option to install
>>> the latest 3.7 release and there is no option to uninstall previously
>>> installed 3.6!
>>>
>>> This may have worked six months ago when there was only 3.6, but it is
>>> not acceptable today - unless 3.6 really is the recommended version,
>>> which in turn would make me feel like an idiot for distributing stuff
>>> that requires 3.7...
>>>
>>> Anyway, I don't mind having the build-gnuradio script as the
>>> recommended tool for installing gnuradio but it should at least offer
>>> the latest 3.7 release and force the user to make a decision whether
>>> to install 3.6, 3.7 or master.
>>>
>>> Finally, it is unclear to me what the recommended way to uninstall
>>> gnuradio is when using this script. I've seen some people talk about
>>> an "uninstall-gnuradio" script but I can't find any official reference
>>> to that.
>>
>> build-gnuradio -m installs 3.7
>>
>
> It was my understanding that -m installs the git head and not the
> latest 3.7 release. IMHO, git head does not qualify as a stable
> baseline for application development and distribution.
>
>> There's still a metric ass-tonne of Gnu Radio stuff out there (including my
>> own applications) that is for 3.6, which is why the default for
>> build-gnuradio is to install 3.6.5.1
>
> My problem is not so much with the script itself as with the fact that
> it is the recommended way to install. Maybe it is unintentional and a
> forgotten leftover from the 3.6-days. That is why I am asking for an
> official opinion, if there is any.
>
> It also appears that many fedora and ubuntu versions now come with
> gnuradio 3.6.5 packaged.
>
> Alex


Hi Alex,

It's actually left over from the very early post-3.7 days. Because of
the many OOT projects using 3.6 (or earlier), we wanted to let things
settle out before defaulting everyone to 3.7. But from all of the talk
on the list and from what I've heard, it sounds like many of the
projects people use and are interested in have been moving over to
3.7. It's past time to update that language on the website.

This topic is on the agenda for Thursday's developers call. I just
want to get any more feedback on the issue before we change things. My
thinking right now is that we basically just add an explanation of the
3.6 vs 3.7 to the download page on the website and also how to get the
different versions using the different tools. I just want to talk
about this out loud on the call to make sure I don't miss anything.

On the other hand, I put PyBOMBS above the build-gnuradio script to
suggest using the new tool over the build script. But as PyBOMBS
was/is new and because of the conversion of OOT projects to 3.7, I
left the language that build-gnuradio is the preferred method in
there.

But it's time to update. Thanks for bringing up the conversation.

-- 
Tom
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