Re: Portable Octave ?

[Bradley Kennedy]

On 10/30/2017 08:27 PM, John W. Eaton wrote:
> On 10/30/2017 07:55 PM, CdeMills wrote:
>> Hello
>> While wishing to test two versions of Octave with different compile
>> options,
>> I came up with a simple idea. I usually configure octave as configure
>> --prefix=${HOME}/usr
>> meaning files are under
>>    ${HOME}/usr/bin, ${HOME}/usr/lib, and so on
>> Now, what about having a prefix of somepath/octave-4.2/
>> meaning files would be now on
>> somepath/octave-4.2/bin, somepath/octave-4.2/lib, ...
>> with some symbolic links (for executable, man and info files) in the
>> usual
>> path. Furthermore, under somepath/octave-4.2 should be a simple Makefile
>> with targets:
>> 1) create the mentionned links
>> 2) purge those links
>>
>> in such a way that 'uninstalling' would be as simple as
>> cd somepath/octave-4.2
>> make uninstall
>> cd ..
>> rm -rf octave-4.2
>>
>> It is similar to Mac OS Application approach: everything living under a
>> common place instead of a /usr/lib with files from dozen of packages.
>> The
>> latter is easier for searching; the former is easier to manage: one
>> hierachy
>> = one App
>> Given the number of files typically included in Octave, this would
>> simplify
>> its management. and Yes, I do not always use the OS package manager.
>>
>> Your opinions ?
>
> For many years I've recommended installing Octave with
>
>   ---prefix=/some/where/VERSION
>
> Then you can use that version of Octave either by executing it with
> /some/where/VERSION/bin/octave or by adding /some/where/VERSION/bin to
> your shell PATH ahead of any other directory that has Octave
> installed. Uninstalling is as simple as
>
>   rm -rf /some/where/VERSION
>
> What else do you need?
>
> jwe
>
Hi there OP,

Typically you would use "module" or some other construct to set up your
path. Making these symbolic links automatically would be a problem if
more than one Octave was installed as 'octave' (in /usr/bin) cannot map
to two versions. So what you want is modules/environments.

Cheers,
brad