From: Bruce S. <Bru...@nc...> - 2011-12-11 02:57:26
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If you have significant experience with Linux, please consider helping maintain the Linux version of VPython. It has been some years since a real Linux expert worked with VPython; that was Jonathan Brandmeyer. Some expertise is needed, because with every new release of Ubuntu, presumably the most popular Linux distribution, there's a pretty high probability that something will go wrong, as was the case with the function Gdk::GL::get_proc_address breaking. Moreover, the Ubuntu package python-visual is typically far behind the current version of Visual. The latest version of Ubuntu offers a python-visual package that is version 5.12, released in August 2009, over two years ago (the current version is 5.72). I hope very much that one or more Linux VPython users will step forward and take responsibility for some aspects of maintaining Visual on Linux. Here are the main issues that I see as needing ongoing attention: * Improve the build machinery. Brandmeyer made a very important contribution in creating the autoconfigure machinery that made it possible to build on diverse Linuxes. However, this machinery is showing its age. For example, it doesn't deal with 64-bit machines, and it's aimed at site-packages rather than the now-favored dist-packages. Moreover, the autoconfigure machinery is quite complex and not easy to modify. Probably someone(s) should experiment with using distutils instead of autoconfig for building Visual. * Get involved with the process that leads to a python-visual package for Ubuntu. I know nothing about this process, but it's clearly not working. It would seem that there is little or no testing of the package, and as noted above the package is woefully out of date. The Ubuntu/Debian package should be built and tested by users of VPython and offered to those who assemble the next version of the Linux distribution. I'm guessing that for someone who knows Linux well, these tasks would not be difficult, but they need to be done. Bruce Sherwood |