Re: Is gnuplot version 5 requirements for octave 4.2?

[Tatsuro MATSUOKA]

----- Original Message -----

> From: Tatsuro MATSUOKA 
> To: edmund ronald ; Mike Miller 
> Cc: help-octave Octave 
> Date: 2016/8/23, Tue 11:49
> Subject: Re: Is gnuplot version 5 requirements for octave 4.2?
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: edmund ronald 
>> To: Mike Miller
>> Cc: help-octave Octave 
>> Date: 2016/8/23, Tue 10:50
>> Subject: Re: Is gnuplot version 5 requirements for octave 4.2?
>> 
>> 
>> ᐧ
>> 
>> 
>> On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 2:58 AM, Mike Miller <address@hidden> 
> wrote:
>> 
>> On Sat, Aug 20, 2016 at 20:07:01 -0400, Ben Abbott wrote:
>>>>  > On Aug 20, 2016, at 7:57 PM, Tatsuro MATSUOKA 
> <address@hidden> wrote:
>>> […]
>>>>  > Is gnuplot version 5 requirements for octave 4.2?
>>>>  >
>>>>  > For windows, mxe-octave provides gnuplot 5.0.4.
>>>>  >
>>>>  > For Mac OS X, pre-built gnuplot 5 seem to be available.
>>>>  >
>>>>  > On major commercial OS, drop of gnuplot 4.6 seem not to be a 
> problem.
>>>>  >
>>>>  > For users who use linux distributions (or other Unix family?), 
> this is a  problem.
>>>>  >
>>>>  > Tatsuro
>>>> 
>>>>  Is there a a problem with 4.6 support, or maybe there is a problem 
> supporting both 5.0 and 4.6?
>>> 
>>> There are problems currently, see
>>> 
>>>   https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/ ?48033
>>>   https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/ ?48832
>>> 
>>> As far as I can tell, the default branch has introduced new
>>> incompatibilities with gnuplot 4 as a result of changes made to support
>>> improved features / changing syntax in gnuplot 5.
>>> 
>>> Personally I have no problem with this move, as long as an explict
>>> dependency on gnuplot >= 5.0 is declared, or someone who cares about
>>> gnuplot support puts in the effort and additional logic to continue to
>>> work with gnuplot 4.2 / 4.4 / 4.6 / pick a version.
>>> 
>>> Right now, the scripts say the minimum version is 4.2.5. This is not
>>> correct in practice, which is why I reported #48033 and set it as a
>>> release blocker.
>>> 
>>> --
>>> mike
>>> 
>>> 
>> I'm trying to figure out what I should do to keep the Mac VM version 
> alive for its users. 
>> 
>> 
>> I think I have hundreds of existing users who use like the VM solution, it 
> is a fallback for when Fruit Corp breaks the native version again, and last 
> not 
> least it's really useful I believe to have a Mac version which can build and 
> run an Octave library or add-on that works under Linux, and supplies 
> bit-for-bit 
> identical calculation results. 
>> 
>> AFAIK there is no Gnuplot 5 package available for Trusty - I don't know 
> the reason for that. 
>> https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/trusty/+source/gnuplot5
>> 
>> Trusty has an EOL of 2019
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Xenial is probably not usable with Vagrant etc at the moment. 
>> Yakety is probably patched but has an EOL of February 2017
>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> My guess is that Xenial will eventually get patched for Vagrant as emulation 
> is mission critical for Ubuntu, and they cannot afford to have an LTS which 
> is 
> incompatibel with Vagrant,  so if I move the base box to Xenial in a couple 
> of 
> months, the problem is solved. I don't want to move to anything except a 
> LTS. Maybe the move was due anyway so at this point I'm not going to 
> protest. 
>> 
>> 
>> Or maybe I should move away from Ubuntu? Reasons? Suggestions? 
>> 
>> 
>> Edmund
> 
> I know the below is not what you want because usual users are not familiar to 
> build application from source.
> 
> The gnuplot 5.0 can be build on Ubuntu 14.04. It is rather easier than to 
> build 
> octave.
> 
> 
> From terminal sudo apt-get build-dep gnuplot
> Install qt5 stuff by synaptic package manager.
> 
> Download gnuplot-5.0.4.tar.gz from gnuplot official site and expand 
> appropriate 
> folder.
> 
> ./configure --with-qt=qt5
> 
> make
> make check
> sudo make install
> 
> Tatsuro


I mainly use windows. 
I use ubuntu (lubuntu) for the purpose octave cross-build and confirm behavior 
of unix origin applications.
Thus what I will write may have wrong points.

Recently I feel the limitation of LTS version of Ubuntu 14.04. 
The libraries on the repository are not updated with a few exception.
However, applications will be developing day by day so that libraries or 
supporting applications become too old
for newer version of applications.

On windows, developers use newer libraries prepared by themselves and usual 
users can use new version of applications
with few efforts.
The situation may be similar for Mac and non-LTS version of linux distributions.
  


Fortunately octave has a build system of mxe-octave that is originally 
developed to build windows binaries on the linux.
However, it can be used for build octave with supporting libraries and 
applications (e.g. gnuplot) for linux native system.
This is very useful for LTS version of linux.

Unfortunately gnuplot built by mxe-octave lacks some important terminals 
supports.
However, it can be modified to build gnuplot with more features.

I have tried to add cairo based and lua/tikz terminals supports but 
I have gotten successful results only for windows.

See: mxe-octave: enable better supported gnuplot terminals

http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?48474


I will try this extension to linux version gnuplot.
Please wait a while.  

Tatsuro