| IDL for linux on Macintosh ppc [message #20276] |
Tue, 06 June 2000 00:00  |
sv(q)
Messages: 1
Registered: June 2000
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Junior Member |
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Has anyone successfully found a work-around for installing
IDL on a Macintosh ppc running linux?
I have a dual boot G4 running Mac OS 9 and yellowdog linux
(a
port of redhat 6.0 to the ppc chip) and would like to run
IDL
on the linux partition. RSI supports linux, but only on the
x86 architecture. Has anyone tried to address this problem?
Does anyone have any interest in seeing IDL under linux on a
Mac?
* Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful
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| Re: IDL for linux on Macintosh ppc [message #20394 is a reply to message #20276] |
Tue, 20 June 2000 00:00  |
pit
Messages: 92
Registered: January 1996
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Member |
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In article <8ibmsv$k87$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
Andrew <noymer@my-deja.com> writes:
> It always amazes me to see companies who have a product
> that runs on "Linux 6.0 or later" (vs. a kernel version
> number). And it amazes me even more to see companies
> (like RSI) who support only one distro.
Well, SAP is also one of them. I can sort of understand that in cases
where the Software Product is tightly related to e.g. boot concept or
filesystem hierarchy.
IDL is not such a product, so I cannot understand their position.
The only important thing is libraries, indeed.
And there, opposite to the claims of RSI before, the problem often
even reverses, e.g. you have to upgrade your system software because
you want to upgrade some software package that is linked against newer
versions of a library.
The other way around (upgrade of the system but keep old version of
software) is *never* critical for an open source system, as
you always will have the option to get/keep the old version of the
libraries, too (I still run an IDL 4.01 (libc4) on a SuSE 6.4
(glibc2.1) system.
> It seems to me that companies vary in their commitment to
> Linux and the ones with low commitment come up with
> whatever excuse is convenient to justify their stance.
Indeed, that's what it is in most cases: Excuses, not reasons.
Peter
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Peter "Pit" Suetterlin http://www.astro.uu.nl/~suetter
Sterrenkundig Instituut Utrecht
Tel.: +31 (0)30 253 5225 P.Suetterlin@astro.uu.nl
____________________________________________________________ ______________
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| Re: IDL for linux on Macintosh ppc [message #20419 is a reply to message #20276] |
Fri, 16 June 2000 00:00 |
Vincent Favre-Nicolin
Messages: 8
Registered: November 1999
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Junior Member |
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Andrew wrote:
> It always amazes me to see companies who have a product
> that runs on "Linux 6.0 or later" (vs. a kernel version
> number). And it amazes me even more to see companies
> (like RSI) who support only one distro.
>
> RedHat version x.y doesn't mean sooo much standardization.
> Is it KDE, Gnome, plain X? Is lesstif installed? How
> is the kernel configured? Etc.
>
> Why is it that Wolfram can get Mathematica to run on
> any distro? Why is it that Statcorp can get Stata to
> run on any distro --- and also supports Linux/PPC?
> And I would not be surprised to see Stata for Linux/SPARC
> or Linux/Alpha.
In the present case, it is not only a matter of distribution.
Supporting 'only RedHat' by RSI means that it has only be tested on
RedHat, it does not mean that it will not run under other distributions.
Similar distributions will certainly alos work. I have installed IDL on
Suse 6.4 and it seems to work, although it's only the demo.
In the case of LinuxPPC, it is not the same *processor* so things
are quite different ! Depending on how IDL was programmed , they may
need some serious work to have it functionnal on a PowerPC + Linux.
Still, since it already runs on many various (and big-endian) machines,
most of the work should already have been done. But the question is :
how many people would be interested ? I *do* use LinuxPPC at home so I
would be interested, but I can understand their point of view.
BTW, there are *numerous* programs which do not run under LinuxPPC
(StarOffice, and Mathematica too, I think), so RSI isn't that much
isolated. A pity, but things are slowly changing
VFN
--
Vincent Favre-Nicolin
Laboratoire de Cristallographie Phone: +41 (22) 702 63 72
24 quai Ernest-Ansermet
CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland Fax: +41 (22) 702 61 08
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| Re: IDL for linux on Macintosh ppc [message #20422 is a reply to message #20276] |
Thu, 15 June 2000 00:00 |
noymer
Messages: 65
Registered: June 1999
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Member |
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It always amazes me to see companies who have a product
that runs on "Linux 6.0 or later" (vs. a kernel version
number). And it amazes me even more to see companies
(like RSI) who support only one distro.
RedHat version x.y doesn't mean sooo much standardization.
Is it KDE, Gnome, plain X? Is lesstif installed? How
is the kernel configured? Etc.
Why is it that Wolfram can get Mathematica to run on
any distro? Why is it that Statcorp can get Stata to
run on any distro --- and also supports Linux/PPC?
And I would not be surprised to see Stata for Linux/SPARC
or Linux/Alpha.
It seems to me that companies vary in their commitment to
Linux and the ones with low commitment come up with
whatever excuse is convenient to justify their stance.
Someone from SAS told me that Linux is not comercially
viable, so no SAS for Linux. So tell me, what do they
know at SAS that IBM, Compaq, SGI, Oracle, etc., don't?
-Andrew
noymer@my-deja.com
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
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| Re: IDL for linux on Macintosh ppc [message #20423 is a reply to message #20276] |
Thu, 15 June 2000 00:00 |
Paras Patel
Messages: 1
Registered: June 2000
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Junior Member |
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"sv(q)" wrote:
> Has anyone successfully found a work-around for installing
> IDL on a Macintosh ppc running linux?
>
> I have a dual boot G4 running Mac OS 9 and yellowdog linux
> (a
> port of redhat 6.0 to the ppc chip) and would like to run
> IDL
> on the linux partition. RSI supports linux, but only on the
> x86 architecture. Has anyone tried to address this problem?
> Does anyone have any interest in seeing IDL under linux on a
> Mac?
>
> * Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful
I doubt that you'll *ever* get RSI to port to Linux/PPC. They have difficulty acknowledging support for distributions other than Red Hat.
Here is an exerpt I received from Tech Support at RSI when I dared asked what I needed to do to get Debian GNU/Linux working properly with IDL.
<Some specific detail omitted....>
The question of Linux support is difficult. No matter what we decide to do,
we will not be able to satisfy everyone. Research Systems offers a
cross-platform visualization and analysis environment. Linux is one of 12
operating systems we support. Due to resourceconstraints, we focus our
support on Redhat. This decision allows us to concentrate on the biggest
share of the Linux user community.
DISCUSSION:
Support for a single Linux distribution causes some problems, especially
since we have a strong international presence. In different countries, we
are getting growing interest for Debian, S.U.S.E, Slackware, etc.. With
issues related to versions of libraries and even the presence of native
libraries (like libc), we are in a situation where we are having to
statically link to these libraries to offer even minimal support to
non-Redhat vendors. The result is an ever expanding footprint for our
product.
Even within a single Linux implementation, we can not move as fast as the
Redhat. Their Web site lists 19 different Redhat Linux releases in the past
4 years. This release schedule is far more dynamic than most software
companies. It's more difficult to pace than most other operating systems. We
also find Linux to have far less concern for backward compatibility. The
last major release of IDL was in late 1998. At the time we increase support
for the latest Redhat release, 5.1. By the time we released IDL 5.3 Redhat
has gone through several additional releases (5.2, 6.0, 6.1 and I believe
6.2). Each of these releases includes hurdles in our ability to support them
because of
differences in the included system libraries.
We also wrestle with the unique characteristics of the Linux community.
While many of our Sun, SGI, or HP users may take years to move to new OS
releases, Linux users, because of the lower cost, seem to migrate to new OS
releases much quicker. This creates a problem where we have OS releases that
are not backward compatible and users that move faster than we can release
products to support these new OS versions.
<....more stuff ....>
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