#8195: Problems with the 'download' page on the Sage web site.
----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
Reporter: drkirkby | Owner: schilly
Type: defect | Status: new
Priority: major | Milestone:
Component: website/wiki | Keywords:
Author: | Upstream: N/A
Reviewer: | Merged:
Work_issues: |
----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
Old description:
> I believe there are several problems on the downloads page:
> http://www.sagemath.org/download.html
>
> This is particularity important now, as I want to put an announcement on
> compu.unix.solaris about Sage on Solaris, but there is no point until the
> web pages are more accurate.
>
> == Download and Media ==
> * It says the current release is 4.3.1, yet there is no mention of the
> fact that for Solaris, the latest is 4.3.0.1. I think this is pretty
> important to have prominently, so a Solaris user does not download 4.3.1,
> which will not work for them. I would suggest adding "Unfortunately,
> 4.3.1 will not build on any version of Solaris. We are working on fixing
> these issues. However, version 4.3.0.1 successfully builds on Solaris 10
> (SPARC)"
> * Further down (too far down IMHO), it says "Sage 4.3.0.1 is the latest
> version that successfully builds on the Sun T5240. See the Sage wiki for
> build instructions" This has three issues
> * Solaris builds on many systems, not just the T5240. In fact, I rarely
> build it on that, as it is so slow.
> * A lot of Solaris users wont even know what a T5240 is. It is probably
> the worst possible sort of machine for scientific users.
> * The Wiki page it points to is '''very''' specific for 't2'. Those
> instructions will be of no use to anyone with any other Solaris machine,
> not even a T5240 unless it is 't2'. I believe there should be a link to
> the build instructions for Solaris, which are at
> http://wiki.sagemath.org/solaris '''plus''' a note for users with access
> to t2.math.washington.edu, that there are very simpled instructions at
> http://wiki.sagemath.org/devel/Building-Sage-on-the-T5240-t2 specifically
> for 't2'. The point is, the instructions at
> http://wiki.sagemath.org/devel/Building-Sage-on-the-T5240-t2 are very
> specific to how 't2' has been configured. They would not apply to anyone
> elses T5240, nor any other Solaris machine. For other Solaris users, the
> only Solaris page of interest is http://wiki.sagemath.org/solaris
>
> == DVD ==
> The link to Lulu to get a live CD reports a message that the CD is not
> available. As such, it should be removed until such time as the DVD
> becomes available, which does not look to be any time soon. It has been
> broken for months.
New description:
I believe there are several problems on the downloads page:
http://www.sagemath.org/download.html
This is particularity important now, as I want to put an announcement on
compu.unix.solaris about Sage on Solaris, but there is no point until the
web pages are more accurate.
== Download and Media ==
* It says the current release is 4.3.1, yet there is no mention of the
fact that for Solaris, the latest is 4.3.0.1. I think this is pretty
important to have prominently, so a Solaris user does not download 4.3.1,
which will not work for them. I would suggest adding "Unfortunately, 4.3.1
will not build on any version of Solaris. We are working on fixing these
issues. However, version 4.3.0.1 successfully builds on Solaris 10
(SPARC)"
* Further down (too far down IMHO), it says "Sage 4.3.0.1 is the latest
version that successfully builds on the Sun T5240. See the Sage wiki for
build instructions" This has three issues
* Solaris builds on many systems, not just the T5240. In fact, I rarely
build it on that, as it is so slow.
* A lot of Solaris users wont even know what a T5240 is. It is probably
the worst possible sort of machine for scientific users.
* The Wiki page it points to is '''very''' specific for 't2'. Those
instructions will be of no use to anyone with any other Solaris machine,
not even a T5240 unless it is 't2'. I believe there should be a link to
the build instructions for Solaris, which are at
http://wiki.sagemath.org/solaris '''plus''' a note for users with access
to t2.math.washington.edu, that there are very simpled instructions at
http://wiki.sagemath.org/devel/Building-Sage-on-the-T5240-t2 specifically
for 't2'. The point is, the instructions at http://wiki.sagemath.org/devel
/Building-Sage-on-the-T5240-t2 are very specific to how 't2' has been
configured. They would not apply to anyone elses T5240, nor any other
Solaris machine. For other Solaris users, the only Solaris page of
interest is http://wiki.sagemath.org/solaris
== DVD ==
The link to Lulu to get a live CD reports a message that the CD is not
available. As such, it should be removed until such time as the DVD
becomes available, which does not look to be any time soon. It has been
broken for months.
Sorry for the hassle Harald,
Dave
--
Comment(by drkirkby):
Hi Harald.
Thanks for the quick reply. I'd really like to get some Solaris users
trying Sage - hence my desire that the information is as up to date as
possible. Here are some specific issues, and some suggestions.
In the light of what you said, about not being too specific about things
that might change, I created a page giving information about installing
the Solaris binaries.
http://wiki.sagemath.org/solaris-binaries
So now there are 3 wiki pages about Solaris. I need to expand the first
one, but it is there for a start, so you can link to it.
* http://wiki.sagemath.org/solaris-binaries - how to install the binaries
downloaded from the Sage web site.
* http://wiki.sagemath.org/solaris - detailed information about building
Sage from source on Solaris
* http://wiki.sagemath.org/devel/Building-Sage-on-the-T5240-t2 - Building
Sage on 't2'. This is only for those with accounts on 't2', and it totally
irrelevant to 99% of users.
I've broken the issues down into those on specific pages.
== http://www.sagemath.org/download-source.html ==
http://www.sagemath.org/download-source.html
says "The newest source-code release is 4.3.1.
Please select a mirror closest to you to reduce server traffic. The
current release is 4.3.1. "
Could you change that to:
'''The newest source-code release is 4.3.1, but unfortunately that does
not build on Solaris. The latest version of Sage to build on Solaris is
4.3.0.1. Please select the nearest mirror ...'''
The second sentence in the ''Information section'' says
"You can get the complete source for Sage to compile it on your own Linux
or Mac OS X system."
There is no mention of Solaris. Could you please add Solaris along with
the Linux and OS X.
== http://www.sagemath.org/download.html ==
Despite the name, this page is almost exclusively be about '''binary'''
distributions. Perhaps it would be better to rename it to ''Download Sage
Binaries and Media''.
For the Solaris entry, I would suggest you write the following, which
should not change too often.
-------------------------------------
'''Solaris'''
Download 4.3.0.1 for Solaris 10 (SPARC)
Sage 4.3.0.1 is the latest version that successfully builds on Solaris 10.
The binary distribution was built a Sun running Solaris 10 03/05, so
should run on any Solaris 10 release. See the Sage Wiki
http://wiki.sagemath.org/solaris-binaries
for information about how to install the Sage binary distribution for
SPARC based systems running Solaris 10.
== http://www.sagemath.org/download-solaris.html ==
The main issues with this page currently are
* The first sentence says "Sage 4.3.0.1 is the latest version that builds
on SPARC Solaris 10, specifically on the Sun T5240". However, there is
nothing specific about that binary for a T5240. It was not even built on a
T5240. It was built on an old Sun Netra T1 running the first release of
Solaris 10. Building it on 't2' would have been unwise, as it could not be
guaranteed to run on earlier releases of Solaris 10. (There are in fact 9
releases of Solaris 10. The first was in 03/2005, and since then there
have been 8 updates).
* The Wiki page it points to, http://wiki.sagemath.org/devel/Building-
Sage-on-the-T5240-t2 is just about building Sage on 't2. Those
instructions are very specific to 't2', and will not work elsewhere.
* The page contains information on a "Sage Live CD", yet that is nothing
to do with Solaris. Since there are Solaris live CD's, this could be
confusing.
* The ''Usage'' section is incorrect, as it uses the 'tar' command with
some GNU specific options, which will not work on Solaris.
At your suggestion, I think the following would be suitable.
---
Sage 4.3.0.1 is the latest version that builds on Solaris 10 (SPARC). See
the Sage wiki
http://wiki.sagemath.org/solaris-binaries
for detailed and up to date instructions on installing the Solaris
binaries.
=== Usage ===
The Solaris binaries are compressed and are available in two forms. If
your SPARC system has the 'p7zip' command, which is standard on recent
Solaris 10 releases, then it is recommended you download sage-...tar.7z as
it is considerably smaller than the gzip compressed file. Otherwise you
can download the .gz file, build pk7zip yourself, or install Sun patch
137477.
$ p7zip -d sage-....tar.7z (if you used the recommended .7z file)
$ gzip -d sage-....tar.gz (if you downloaded the larger .gz file)
Sun's version of tar will not extract the binaries, so use the GNU tar.
$ /usr/sfw/bin/gtar xf sage-..tar
$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/sfw/lib
$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
Change to the directory where the files were extract, then run
$ ./sage
More detailed instructions can be found on the Sage Wiki at
http://wiki.sagemath.org/solaris-binaries
'''Sage Live CD '''
Delete it, as it is nothing to do with Solaris.
'''Source'''
Make sure that points to somewhere where one can get the Solaris 4.3.0.1
source code. Currently it only points to a page saying the latest release
is 4.3.1
--
Ticket URL: <http://trac.sagemath.org/sage_trac/ticket/8195#comment:2>
Sage <http://www.sagemath.org>
Sage: Creating a Viable Open Source Alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica,
and MATLAB
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