mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[Maxim Nikulin <address@hidden>]

Alejandro Jakubi wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Jun 2009, Andrey G. Grozin wrote:
>
> > Why don't you just compile the current TeXmacs from sources? Then you 
> > can make a .deb and submit it to Ubuntu.
>
> Several reasons. E.g. my experiences with trying to compile applications 
> in the past have been of failure most of the times. And not even the 
> developers were able to solve the compilation problems that I have 
> found. So, I prefer to leave it to those persons with expertise on these 
> issues.

I hope my recipe will be helpful.

I use debian sources just because I have a fast mirror nearby. I don't 
know whether there are any problems with backporting of ubuntu sources. 
You can use e.g.  http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/t/texmacs/
Download texmacs_1.0.7.orig.tar.gz, texmacs_1.0.7-2.dsc and 
texmacs_1.0.7-2.diff.gz

Likely dash should be disabled as a default shell due to these sources 
contain scripts with "bashisms". I checked that the most annoying of 
them have been fixed in svn.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure dash

dpkg-source -x texmacs_1.0.7-2.dsc
cd texmacs-1.0.7/
sudo apt-get build-dep texmacs
# actually you should have installed everything mentioned in
# the debian/control file, Build-Depends entry
fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage -b -us -uc
cd ..
sudo dpkg -i texmacs_1.0.7-2_i386.deb texmacs-common_1.0.7-2_all.deb

That's all. The problem with spurious brackets disappears (at least for 
maxima).

> MN> Disappointing... Ubuntu seems to be wrong choice for scientific 
> applications.
>
> For me the point is Axiom. Ubuntu is one of the distributions with its most
> updated binaries:
>
> http://www.axiom-developer.org/axiom-website/download.html

I don't see .deb files from the first glance. Even if they were there, I 
would prefer packages out of box.

$ apt-cache policy axiom
axiom:
  Installed: 20050901-9ubuntu1
  Candidate: 20050901-9ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 20050901-9ubuntu1 0
        500 http://ru.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/universe Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Ancient version in the community repository `universe' but not official 
`main'. And it is broken:

(1) -> integrate(x**2, x)
   Loading /usr/lib/axiom-20050901/algebra/UPMP.o for package
      UnivariatePolynomialMultiplicationPackage

   >> System error:
   Couldn't protect

(I'm aware of setarch workaround.)

Ubuntu 8.04 is pretending to be stable `Long Time Support' release. We 
have broken axiom package, texmacs is inconsistent with maxima version.
That's why I believe that ubuntu is not intended for scientists.

--
Regards, Max