hosting binary packages

hosting binary packages

[Stefan Gerlach]

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Hi,

I want to ask if there is an official place where binary packages of gsl for 
different distributions can be found. I found some private sites with various 
gsl packages but that's not very convenient.

I could provide binary package for more than a dozen distributions that have 
no or old gsl packages. Maybe it is possible to set up a sourceforge project 
to host binary gsl packages.

Any comments?

Thanks in advance,
Stefan Gerlach


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Re: hosting binary packages

[Brian Gough]

Stefan Gerlach writes:
 > I want to ask if there is an official place where binary packages of gsl for 
 > different distributions can be found. I found some private sites with various 
 > gsl packages but that's not very convenient.

Hello,

Generally I am not a great believer in distributing binaries by ftp
from a security viewpoint--it is better for distributors to do that,
as a tested part of their distribution, or for people to compile from
source (which is not too difficult in the case of GSL).

 > I could provide binary package for more than a dozen distributions that have 
 > no or old gsl packages. Maybe it is possible to set up a sourceforge project 
 > to host binary gsl packages.

If the distributions are minor ones, I wouldn't think it's worth it to
be honest.  If there are some major distributions which are not
including it or have stopped maybe I can ask them why or ask them to
add it.  Last time I checked, it was included in RHEL/Fedora, SUSE,
Mandriva and Debian.

-- 
Brian Gough

Re: hosting binary packages

[Robert G. Brown]

On Mon, 13 Mar 2006, Brian Gough wrote:

> If the distributions are minor ones, I wouldn't think it's worth it to
> be honest.  If there are some major distributions which are not
> including it or have stopped maybe I can ask them why or ask them to
> add it.  Last time I checked, it was included in RHEL/Fedora, SUSE,
> Mandriva and Debian.

Exactly.  In fact, if you are using yum to update one of the major
rpm-based distros, you can almost certainly do a "yum install gsl\*" and
get it.  If you can't do this right out of the box, there are lots of
yum-ready sites and mirrors that have it.  Duke among others -- look on
mirror.dulug.duke.edu or install.dulug.duke.edu, for example (has
high-level centos and FC mirrors)

    rgb

-- 
Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb@phy.duke.edu

Re: hosting binary packages

[Stefan Gerlach]

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Hello,

> Generally I am not a great believer in distributing binaries by ftp
> from a security viewpoint--it is better for distributors to do that,
> as a tested part of their distribution, or for people to compile from
> source (which is not too difficult in the case of GSL).

Yes. I though more of a laboratory environment where security is not so 
important. But packages can be signed with PGP. You just have to trust the 
packager.
Also some people may not have the time to compile GSL from source and 
installing and removing precompiled packages is much easier.

> If the distributions are minor ones, I wouldn't think it's worth it to
> be honest.  If there are some major distributions which are not
> including it or have stopped maybe I can ask them why or ask them to
> add it.  Last time I checked, it was included in RHEL/Fedora, SUSE,
> Mandriva and Debian.

You are right. Most distributions including gsl. But the versions are not 
updated. I see no major distribution which includes gsl 1.7. (SUSE 10.0, 
Fedora Core 4 and Mandriva 2006 use gsl-1.6).
Also if you have an older distribution (this is often required for special 
hardware or in a laboratory) only old gsl packages are avaiable (RedHat 9 : 
gsl-1.1.1).

I just though providing gsl-1.7 packages for all major distributions may be a 
good idea to help people using it.

-- 
Stefan Gerlach

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Re: hosting binary packages

[Jeff Spirko]

Stefan Gerlach wrote:
>> Last time I checked, it was included in RHEL/Fedora, SUSE,
>> Mandriva and Debian.
>>     
> You are right. Most distributions including gsl. But the versions are not 
> updated. I see no major distribution which includes gsl 1.7. (SUSE 10.0, 
> Fedora Core 4 and Mandriva 2006 use gsl-1.6).
> Also if you have an older distribution (this is often required for special 
> hardware or in a laboratory) only old gsl packages are avaiable (RedHat 9 : 
> gsl-1.1.1).
>   
Fedora includes gsl-1.7 in the development tree.  To access it in yum, 
enable that repository.  For exmple:
  $ yum --enablerepo=development list gsl
  Available Packages
  gsl.i386                                 1.7-1.2.1              
development
Of course, this triggers a few other updates, starting with glibc-2.4.

-- 
Jeff Spirko   spirko@lehigh.edu   spirko@yahoo.com   WD3V   |=>

The study of non-linear physics is like the study of non-elephant biology.

Re: hosting binary packages

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On 13 March 2006 at 15:30, Stefan Gerlach wrote:
| You are right. Most distributions including gsl. But the versions are not 
| updated. I see no major distribution which includes gsl 1.7. (SUSE 10.0, 
| Fedora Core 4 and Mandriva 2006 use gsl-1.6).

Debian has had GSL packages since August 1998.  I have maintained them since
November 1999 and always provide current packages, often within a day of the
GSL release itself.  To take but the most recent example, gsl_1.7-1 was
uploaded on September 15, 2005, whereas the upstream tarball has files dates
September 14, 2005. See http://changelogs.debian.net/gsl for details.

And by providing Debian package, gsl also makes it into Ubuntu, Knoppix, and
other derivatives as e.g. my Quantian project.  

Cheers, Dirk

-- 
Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something. 
                                                  -- Thomas A. Edison

Re: hosting binary packages

[Brian Gough]

Stefan Gerlach writes:
 > You are right. Most distributions including gsl. But the versions are not 
 > updated. I see no major distribution which includes gsl 1.7. (SUSE 10.0, 
 > Fedora Core 4 and Mandriva 2006 use gsl-1.6).

Thanks for the information.  It would be good if people filed a bug
for their distribution if it has an out of date version of GSL.  I
looked on the SUSE bugtracker for example and there is no bug for
that.

-- 
Brian Gough

Network Theory Ltd,
Publishing Free Software Manuals --- http://www.network-theory.co.uk/

Re: hosting binary packages

[Stefan Gerlach]

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>  > You are right. Most distributions including gsl. But the versions are
>  > not updated. I see no major distribution which includes gsl 1.7. (SUSE
>  > 10.0, Fedora Core 4 and Mandriva 2006 use gsl-1.6).
>
> Thanks for the information.  It would be good if people filed a bug
> for their distribution if it has an out of date version of GSL.  I
> looked on the SUSE bugtracker for example and there is no bug for
> that.

Don't get me wrong. The mentioned distributions are from last year so they may 
not had the time to integrate the newer version. But nonetheless they will 
never provide new packages for these distributions (only in a 
development/testing/factory repository).

-- 
Stefan Gerlach


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