Re: Problem installing packages

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

On 28 May 2012 18:26, Martin Helm <address@hidden> wrote:
> A simple "pkg install -forge ..." within octave is not much more
> work than a "zypper install ..." in the package management, but of
> course I have to take care of installing the dependencies myself.

Well, as long as you can compile the packages correctly, it's not a
huge difference, no. But if you don't want to chase dependencies
yourself and make sure your system is fine...

> No, I just want to tell that I simply never see the problems
> mentioned in that thread and meanwhile I use the pkg in octave for
> several years (the -forge switch of course only since it appeared).

Neither have I, using Debian. But this is precisely the problem with
pkg install that I want to make. It works for me, but that's because I
have long ago setup my system to work for it. It's fiddly and will
fail on many different ways depending on the setup of each system.

You and I are involved with Octave development, so we naturally also
regularly compile Octave and its packages. But we're a minority.
Unless you can establish a complete source distribution where
compilation is the natural mode of installing packages, like homebrew
on MacOS X or Gentoo on GNU/Linux, pkg install is not the best way to
get packages to most users. Source distribution is brittle unless the
environment to support it exists.

For this reason, I would like to at least de-emphasise pkg install as
the method we should be suggesting for people to install packages. I
wish we could tell them to first try to find compiled packages for
their system, and if that fails (there are no packages, or the
compiled package has bugs that affect this particular user, or they're
already using a system where source compilation is the preferred
distribution method), then *as a fallback* we suggest using pkg
install.

Most Octave users do not acquire Octave by compiling it. Most of them
shouldn't need to acquire its packages by compiling either.

- Jordi G. H.