Re: ARB 6.0 released
Hi Elmar,
On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 12:04:41PM +0200, Elmar Pruesse wrote:
> > Do you have a list of packages that's missing in your institute?
>
> I'm not sure it'd be helpful. The reality at our institute is that our
> base distro is rather outdated (Ubuntu 10.04, update to Debian 7 is
> pending). We therefore have a lot of software in /usr/local simply
> because the packages are outdated in our distro.
You could check anyway whether you might spot something which might be
missing in Debian but could be useful. IMHO the best way to check is
our biology task page[1].
> The second category is non FOSS software. E.g. software that came with
> our instruments.
Probably no real target for us ... even it is a shame that instrument
manufacturers do not provide free code.
> The third category are tools that were part of some research paper or
> thesis. They are often not very mature and don't have an upstream that
> is likely to maintain the software.
If you look at out tasks page[1] you will find some examples for this.
I think this status is no reason to not package it for Debian. As long
as it has a couple of users and is free of bugs that's fine.
> > I do not know "Environment Modules" but I agree that maintaining
> > several versions in a multi user environment is a problem we do
> > not have very handy solutions [...]
>
> This is the "Environment Modules" tool I was talking about:
> http://modules.sourceforge.net/
>
> It allows managing locally installed packages by providing the command
> "module" to handle modification of the users' environment. Issuing e.g.
> "module add arb" would modify the PATH such that it now includes the
> paths to the arb binaries. It also includes versioning ("module add
> arb/6.0"), dependencies and a way to persist the loaded modules for a
> user. The "packages" (modules) are defined using small TCL scripts that
> define which variables have to be modified and how ("prepend-path PATH
> '/usr/local/arb-6.0/bin'").
>
> All in all it's a useful way to manage locally installed software
> without creating a huge mess in /usr/local.
Hmmmm, I wonder how long this kind of tools might persist in times of
docker.com and other virtualisation techniques. But I might
underestimate modules, thought.
> It might be a candidate for packaging. Although it's not really "Debian
> Med".
That's no point here. We have packaged some other non-Med/Bio stuff as
preconditions for our work. On the other hand I would rather put this
into Debian Science field to find more friends. As long as somebody is
doing the work which provides a reasonable solution for several people
that's fine.
Kind regards
Andreas.
[1] http://blends.debian.org/med/tasks/bio
--
http://fam-tille.de
Reply to: