[Plplot-general] New version of libLASi approaching release, please test

[Alan W. I. <ir...@be...>]

The reason why I am bringing this libLASi news to the plplot-general list,
is that -dev psttf, one of our premier devices, depends on libLASi so many
of us have a vested interest in what is going on with libLASi.

In fact, Ed Trager has invited a number of PLplot developers to be
developers for libLASi, and we have made a lot of progress with that library
recently.  We have established the project at SourceForge
(sf.net/projects/lasi), made a new CMake build system which allows libLASi
to be built on both Unix/Linux and windows, and consolidated the two code
bases (one for FreeType versions below 2.2 and the other for 2.2+) into one
code base where the API change from FreeType 2.1 to 2.2 is automatically
configured by CMake without the user having to worry about it.

The new version in the subversion repository at SourcForge passes build
tests for the small number of windows and Linux systems accessible to us so
it is time to broaden our testing before we make a libLASi release.

If you would like to help with this testing process, here is how to test the
latest libLASi version from svn.

(1) Install the prerequisite pango development libraries.  On Linux this is
straightforward (e.g., "apt-get install libpango1.0-dev" on Debian stable),
but substantially more complicated on windows, see comments by Werner
Smekal at
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=31481797&forum_id=2199.

(2) Check out the code from our SF svn repository using

svn checkout https://lasi.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/lasi/trunk lasi

where lasi is a non-existent or empty directory.

(3) Configure libLASi as follows with the cmake command:

mkdir build_dir
cd build_dir
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$lasi_prefix
-DCMAKE_VERBOSE_MAKEFILE=ON ../lasi >& cmake.out

where $lasi_prefix is the libLASi installation prefix you have decided to use.
Check cmake.out for any problems.

N.B. cmake-2.4.5 is the minimum version of cmake that you can use to configure
libLASi.

(4) Build and install with

make >& make.out
make install >& make_install.out

Check the *.out files for any errors or problems.

(5) Configure PLplot with its CMake build system using

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$lasi_prefix/lib/pkgconfig

_before_ the cmake command to help the PLplot CMake build system find the
new libLASi that was installed above.  For other details about how to
use cmake to configure PLplot see
http://www.miscdebris.net/plplot_wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page.

N.B. cmake-2.4.5 is the minimum version of cmake that you can use to configure
PLplot.

(6) build, install, and test build-tree examples (ctest now includes -dev
psttc) from PLplot as usual.

Good luck with your PLplot (via -dev psttfc) testing of the new libLASi and
let us know of any problems.  Please be sure to include your platform details
in your report.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the
Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
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