On 2007-01-22 22:05-0500 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > On Jan 22, 2007, at 1:48 AM, Alan W. Irwin wrote: > >> Thanks for your continuing release efforts. > > No problem. A few questions came up in the process of generating this > release: > > (1) In our Cookbook at the make_tarball.sh stage we mention a /a/ > install/directory created for testing purposes. This did not seem to get > populated, so I unpacked the tarball to run the tests. Is this a problem with > the script? Or is the Cookbook wrong?
The cookbook instructions say to ./scripts/make_tarball.sh -c -i /a/install/directory 2>&1 | tee build.log I am positive I tested this, and all was well. Also, I have looked at the script and cannot see anything that would cause the -i option not to work. (To get some documentation of the script, run ./scripts/make_tarball.sh -h ) However, screwups occur so please try the script again and send me the exact command you used, the resulting *.out files (in the script build directory, /tmp/plplot-dist-prep/build_dir), and most importantly the build.log file. > > (2) Does anyone know of an easy way to force a computer to time sync using > ntp or equivalent? I've installed the debian ntp package but it doesn't seem > to be doing anything. I'd like to add this to the Cookbook since it is often > an issue with my computer. If you were running a Linux computer all the time, I highly recommend using ntp which is great for maintaining system time to the nearest 10 ms or so indefinitely (despite computer hardware clocks trying to get out of synch by typically 5-10 seconds per day). However, if you just want to boot into Debian set the time, do your release, then quit, then ntpdate (which sets the system time accurately once, but does not maintain it) is probably what you want to use. For ntpdate use "man ntpdate". For ntp the instructions are a little more complicated. It has been more than two years since I installed ntp on my Debian stable system, and it has worked fine ever since. From what I can remember, you have to edit /etc/ntp.conf to provide it with some ntp servers to get it to work. I used server pool.ntp.org server pool.ntp.org server pool.ntp.org to access three separate ntp servers from the pool. After you adjust your /etc/ntp.conf file you must do the following two commands to stop and start the service so that the new versions of /etc/ntp.conf will be read. /etc/init.d/ntp-server stop /etc/init.d/ntp-server start If your system clock is badly out (hours or days), it will take ntp an equivalent time or much longer to adjust it. So you may want to use the ntpdate command to set your system time accurately before you run /etc/init.d/ntp-server stop/start combination to maintain the accuracy of that system time indefinitely. There is a command you can use to watch what ntp is doing as it adjusts the clock. I have forgotten what it is, but it is documented in the extensive ntp html documentation. (You can also watch your clock, but it's more fun to watch paint dry since it generally takes quite a while for ntp to slowly adjust the time to be accurate to the nearest second, and a bit longer to get its ultimate accuracy, 10 ms or so.) BTW, the reason ntp is so slow to make large time adjustments is it wants to be sure it doesn't disrupt anything time-dependent on the system (such as a Makefile in the middle of execution). ntpdate is time-disruptive, but it is meant to be run by hand when you are pretty sure nothing time-sensitive is being run on your system. > > (3) How long should we keep links to old versions of PLplot on our main > webpage? Currently we have Release Notes back to 5.1.0. I think the latest stable release (5.6.1) and the latest development release (5.7.2) should be sufficient. They should be labelled on the web page as latest stable and latest development. Alan __________________________ Alan W. Irwin Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __________________________ Linux-powered Science __________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
