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Michael Haubenwallner wrote: |
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> Hi Dag, |
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> |
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> Dag Sverre Seljebotn wrote: |
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> |
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>> Just stumbled over Gentoo prefix and it seems very exciting (see my |
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>> usecase below). My question: |
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>> |
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> |
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> You're welcome! |
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> |
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> |
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>> Is it possible to use the host system's bash/gcc/... when having a |
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>> Gentoo prefix on Mac or Linux? I.e. a system for setting up software |
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>> which doesn't have *too* much redundancy with the host system. One would |
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>> then set PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, MANPATH etc. to use it as an overlay |
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>> over the host system. |
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>> |
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> |
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> While it should be "possible" to some degree to do this, we can not recommend |
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> and of course not really support this - although you might get hints for specific |
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> problems here and there. |
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> |
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Thanks for the input, it's very helpful. |
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|
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> First hint: Do _not_ use LD_LIBRARY_PATH (on a regular basis) for various reasons. |
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> |
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I keep seeing this statement repeated on the web, but somehow always |
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feel the reasons given don't apply in my usecase (I might of course be |
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wrong..). And using LD_LIBRARY_PATH is incredibly convenient for a |
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number of reasons: It allows moving directories around, moving programs |
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to our cluster for execution without recompiling, ship a binary tarball |
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to others with the same system. |
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I realize people have strong opinions about this. Please, I don't want |
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to start any flamewars. (In particular I don't feel strongly for arguing |
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about one vs. the other, just saying that I'm currently a happy |
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LD_LIBRARY_PATH user.) |
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|
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> <snip> |
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> |
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>> - Need to distribute software fast and iteratively to coworkers on the |
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>> other side of the world with a totally different setup |
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>> - Linux, Mac, Solaris, Windows... |
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>> |
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> |
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> Third hint: |
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> Having that many different systems and users feels like becoming a maintenance |
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> nightmare when trying to use as much as possible packages from the host system. |
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> |
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Something that might help is the simplicity of the packages I want to |
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deploy, but I do see your point. Others have already taken this approach |
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though, such as Sage (http://sagemath.org) and it works pretty well. |
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(Well, there's no Windows.) |
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|
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It is a weakness shared with the *current* approach used by pretty much |
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everybody, which is to provide my package, list the 15 dependencies, and |
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have people sort it out by themselves -- which is a major waste of time |
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(to make an understatement, not all scientists are experts in building |
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software). To the point that people rewrite complicated stuff themselves |
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just to avoid the dependencies... |
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(I live in a world where people just don't have root access to their |
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boxes. Using package managers to install software only works if the |
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software is stable and one can ask sysadmins to do it and wait some |
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days; which drastically lengthens the turnaround time.) |
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Another alternative is writing packages for Sagemath -- |
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http://sagemath.org. I already know that the Gentoo community don't |
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particularly care for the Sagemath approach though :-) : |
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|
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http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=240622 |
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Thanks for the input, I'll just have to see where this takes me... |
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Dag Sverre |
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