visualpython-users

[Visualpython-users] Help with Linux?

[Bruce S. <Bru...@nc...>]

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package, and as noted above the package is woefully out of date.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

Re: [Visualpython-users] Help with Linux?

[Bruce S. <Bru...@nc...>]

Another issue:

* Find out how to get a working python-visual package into the regular
Ubuntu update process, so that we don't have to wait for another full
operating system update.

Bruce Sherwood

On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 7:57 PM, Bruce Sherwood <Bru...@nc...> wrote:
> 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

Re: [Visualpython-users] Help with Linux?

[Bruce S. <Bru...@nc...>]

Upon reflection, maybe it's irrelevant to worry about official Linux
packages and updates. If Aaron and others could build packages for
Visual for the most popular distributions (rpm etc.), they could be
hosted on the download page at vpython.org. As long as the packages do
their job of automatically resolving the many dependencies, it's not
all that important whether Ubuntu and other distributions include
"our" packages in their official list of packages or not.

Bruce Sherwood

Re: [Visualpython-users] Help with Linux?

[Aaron M. <mav...@gm...>]

On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 6:47 PM, Bruce Sherwood <Bru...@nc...> wrote:
> Upon reflection, maybe it's irrelevant to worry about official Linux
> packages and updates. If Aaron and others could build packages for
> Visual for the most popular distributions (rpm etc.), they could be
> hosted on the download page at vpython.org. As long as the packages do
> their job of automatically resolving the many dependencies, it's not
> all that important whether Ubuntu and other distributions include
> "our" packages in their official list of packages or not.

This is essentially the approach we took with Thousand Parsec [1]
packaging: provide up-to-date in-house packages and
repositories/overlays for the most popular distributions' package
managers, and (secondarily) attempt to get them included/updated in
official repositories. The main thing needed for the latter is for
someone to "adopt" the package within each distro -- shouldn't be a
problem for Visual, as it's fairly well established in this sense --
and then for an upstream (VPython) developer to poke the various
maintainers whenever there's a new release. As long as upstream
developers do the actual packaging work, the distro developers should
normally only need to QA and update, with minimal back-and-forth.
Incidentally, this line of communication can help upstream build
better packages for each distro as well.


[1] http://thousandparsec.net/tp

(Sorry for the double message, Bruce!)

-- 
Aaron Mavrinac
www.mavrinac.com

Re: [Visualpython-users] Help with Linux?

[Bruce S. <Bru...@nc...>]

Aaron Mavrinac has volunteered to help with Linux but comments about
Ubuntu, "This I can't help with, as I don't use Ubuntu. I do maintain
an up-to-date ebuild for Gentoo/Funtoo in my unofficial overlay."

Isn't there a knowledgeable Ubuntu user in the VPython community who
could collaborate with Aaron on this? It now seems clear that what is
needed is really just 1) testing VPython on new Ubuntu releases, to
catch problems such as happened recently with a library function no
longer working, and 2) preparing up-to-date packages to be hosted at
vpython.org, because Ubuntu can be a couple years behind VPython
developments (it's a secondary issue to pester Ubuntu to put "our"
package in "their" distribution).

Bruce Sherwood

On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 7:57 PM, Bruce Sherwood <Bru...@nc...> wrote:
> 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

Re: [Visualpython-users] Help with Linux?

[C A. R. <an...@xt...>]

On Dec 16, 2011 12:34 PM, "Bruce Sherwood" <Bru...@nc...> wrote:
>
> Isn't there a knowledgeable Ubuntu user in the VPython community who
> could collaborate with Aaron on this?

I think you'll want to be working with Debian more than anything -- AFAIK
Ubuntu just syncs the vast majority of packages from Debian Sid.  Get a
maintainer there and you'll probably get an updated Ubuntu for free ...
been a long time since I used the 'buntu so maybe the process is a bit
different now.

--

C Anthony [mobile]