I also think that we should try as much as possible to facilitate the operations required of the users as long as it doesn't limit the performance of our products or the flexibility for the users which is not the case here.

As we are pushing for the adpotion of Octave by some of the central banks with whom we are in contact thru the GPM project, it is important to keep simple installation procedures.

Best

Michel


On 03/07/2012 11:01 AM, Sébastien Villemot wrote: 
Stéphane Adjemian <stepan@dynare.org> writes:


I strongly support solution 2. I am sure that even a windows user is
able to unzip an archive. So except if there is another issue with this
version of octave, I don't see why we should distribute octave (and pay
space on kirikou for that). We may alternatively distribute a python
script that download and unpack octave for the user... But I don't think
this is necessary.

I don't think it is a matter of monetary cost: currently we are far from
using all our allocated space on kirikou (the hard disk is almost full
but we could expand it by 20Go for free).

Also note that it is a little more complicated than just unpacking a
zip. You have to do manual renaming of the libraries if you want an
optimized BLAS, you have to manually activate the Octave toolboxes, and
manually create the desktop shortcut. See
http://www.octave.org/wiki/index.php?title=Octave_for_Windows

Of course this is not impossible for a user, but in my opinion it is
sufficiently difficult to limit adoption of Dynare/Octave by our users.

For me the real tradeoff is between download size and ease of
installation. Since 200Mb is still a reasonably small download time, I
would favor ease of installation.


On 07/03/2012 09:47, Sébastien Villemot wrote:

Hi,

I intend to release Dynare 4.2.5 by the end of the week. This release
will in particular incorporate bugfixes to sensitivity and
identification, so that Marco can use it in its upcoming workshop. The
4.2.5 release will probably be the last in the 4.2 branch, since we aim
at releasing 4.3.0 in June.

Please backport to the 4.2 branch any bugfix that you made in master and
that is relevant for 4.2. Your window of opportunity is only of a few
days :)

Also, I would like to get your feedback concerning the Windows package
of Dynare, in relation to Octave. As you may know, Octave 3.6.1 has been
released recently, and two Windows packages have been created for it
(see [1]):

- one compiled with Microsoft Visual C++ (MSVC), which comes with a neat
  installer and an experimental preview of the Octave GUI. The problem
  is that it is impossible to fully cross-compile Dynare for Octave/MSVC
  from GNU/Linux: I seem to be possible to do it for MEX files, but it
  is clearly impossible for Oct files (which are "ordschur" and
  "qzcomplex").

- one compiled with MinGW: no problem for cross-compiling Dynare for
  Octave/MinGW from GNU/Linux. But at this time there is no automated
  installer of Octave/MinGW: it comes only in the form of ZIP files that
  one has to uncompress manually.

We have to decide which Windows version of Octave we support (supporting
both seems an unnecessary burden). I see the following possible
solutions:

1) Support the MinGW version. Cross-compile everything from
   GNU/Linux. Bundle Octave/MinGW in the Dynare installer (leaving the
   choice to our user of installing it or not). The big advantage is
   that the Dynare installer will be totally self-contained. The
   drawback is that it makes the installer bigger: it would go from 20Mb
   to about 200Mb.

2) Support the MinGW version. Cross-compile everything from
   GNU/Linux. Ask our users to manually download and unzip Octave/MinGW.

3) Support the MSVC version. Cross-compile the MEX files from GNU/Linux
   (seems possible). For the Oct files, compile them manually from time
   to time in a Windows Virtual Machine, and smuggle them in the nightly
   cross-compiled snapshot. Ask our users to use the Octave/MSVC
   installer (also note that before installing Octave/MSVC, they have to
   download and install the MSVC runtime from Microsoft website).

My ranking is 1 > 2 > 3.

If you have any opinion on this, please raise your voice. Otherwhise
I’ll implement solution 1 for the 4.2.5 package.

[1] http://www.octave.org/wiki/index.php?title=Octave_for_Windows




_______________________________________________
Dev mailing list
Dev@dynare.org
https://www.dynare.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dev


      

_______________________________________________
Dev mailing list
Dev@dynare.org
https://www.dynare.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dev