[esp-r] Re: Esp-r linux install

[Lukas Swan (Dal)]

Good Questions Duncan-
It seems to me that the precompiled binaries are pretty easy to use. If I
recall correctly, in Windows it places an icon you can double-click on
directly on the desktop. However, in the Cygwin and Linux environment you do
still have to go set the path. 
I think in most Linux distributions, the "/home/username/bin" path is
typically included in the $PATH variable, and the "username" has complete
access to install in this location (no sudo required). If the precompiled
binaries installer could drop the files there, the issue may be less
important. 

The compiler and library issues are a different matter.
The ESP-r installer (compiling version) typically has difficulty with any
standard install of a recent freely available Linux Distribution. I have
tried different freely available Linux distributions (Fedora, Suse, Ubuntu)
and found that only Fedora has easy access (through "custom installation" or
"add/remove applications") to install the extra packages (mainly g77)
required for ESP-r compilation.
Fedora Core 4 allows ESP-r to be compiled under the standard installation
(it included g77).

I have been successful in using the gfortran compiler, but that didn't
always work either. Also, if you compile with gfortran and then later try to
compile with g77, it doesn't seem to work. I had to go re-download the
source. I have not followed up on this.


Furthermore, my work lately has been with 64 bit OS and multi-core
processors. I can run ESP-r precompiled binaries on these machines, but
cannot compile (it really does not like the 64 bit libraries, even though
the 32 bit libraries are installed as well). Nor does it take advantage of
the 64 bit processing or the multi-core.
Recently, I have been opening multiple simultaneous bps simulation programs
and running separate house files through them to take advantage of this
multi-core processing power.
As most computers are now typically multi-core, it would be great if ESP-r
could start threading appropriately to take advantage of this.

Lukas Swan
Dalhousie University
Nova Scotia, Canada 

-----Original Message-----
From: esp-r-bounces at lists.strath.ac.uk
[mailto:esp-r-bounces at lists.strath.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Duncan Lithgow
Sent: May 31, 2007 2:35 AM
To: Jon Hand (clcv10)
Cc: Athanasios Sakkas; esp-r at lists.strath.ac.uk
Subject: [esp-r] Re: Esp-r linux install

On Wed, 2007-05-30 at 10:13 +0100, Jon Hand (clcv10) wrote:
> You need to know where you installed the ESP-r modules (e.g. prj res  
> bps) on
> your machine.  And then you can add the correct environment variables.

With due respect to the developers I think that if esp-r cannot set
environmental variables without user intervention (beyond giving
permission) then that should be regarded as a usability bug.

Surely this is high on the "list of critical issues
to bring more 'new blood' into the developer and user
community" (quoting the Summary of March ESP-r developers workshop)

Keep up the great progress.

Duncan


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