#11081: Update the "Install from Source Code" section of the Sage Installation
Guide
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Reporter: drkirkby | Owner: mvngu
Type: enhancement | Status: needs_work
Priority: major | Milestone: sage-4.7
Component: documentation | Keywords:
Author: David Kirkby | Upstream: N/A
Reviewer: Karl-Dieter Crisman | Merged:
Work_issues: |
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Comment(by drkirkby):
Replying to [comment:3 kcrisman]:
> A few comments for improvement:
> * I think it would be nice to have at least the main "fully supported"
versions here. No need to go clicking through if you are on a normal
system, then, and also it will be clear that e.g. Windows 7 is not on that
list just by looking at it. Something like "supported on many Linux
distributions, Mac OS X, and 32-bit Solaris; see ... for details and
status of other systems." I'm not wedded to that phrasing, but it's
reasonable to have at least minimal info.
OK, point taken. I'll keep that to the bare minimum though. I don't think
its true to say Sage is "supported on many Linux distributions" when we
only test on a few. The issue we had before was a huge range of
"supported" Linux distributions, which nobody had tested on for ages, if
at all.
> * A minor note should be added that gfortran is not provided by Xcode
on OS X, but that Sage provides a suitable Fortran compiler for OS X.
I can add that, though the current documentation does say in this very
file:
''On Mac OS X, you are not required to have a Fortran compiler on your
system. The Sage source distribution is shipped with a Fortran compiler
for Mac OS X. This Fortran compiler is used, unless you specify another
Fortran compiler via the variable SAGE_FORTRAN.''
> * Even for my ancient < 1 GHz Emac (probably from around 2003), it
takes less than a minute for Sage to start up the first time (though it's
close!). I think it is more reasonable to say "starting the first time
may take more than a few seconds; a few platforms will take longer for
reason X" where it is clear that reason X is something about the platform,
not Sage.
I hear plenty of complaints on sage-devel of Sage taking a very long time
to start.
> * "**Note from David Kirkby.** " - is that going to look ok in the
docs? Maybe instead using the ".. note:" syntax...
In my opinion it looked ok, but perhaps I'm biased. I don't know how to
use the ''note syntax''. I wanted to make this quite prominent, as I think
its a pretty important point. We are documenting how to do something that
any decent system administer knows one should never do.
> All the updates etc. and changes for more accurate documentation look
fine, though I'm sure more knowledgeable folks will have some minor
changes there, since it's a rule that any patch longer than 1 character
has a bug :-)
Yes, I just want to avoid it becoming like tickets have become. I feel
quite sorry for John, as I feel that reviewers have requested changes far
outside the scope of some of John's tickets.
> Nice work cleaning this up, Dave. We are very fortunate that Sage has
enough people who care about this kind of thing that we do eventually
clean them up!
I think documentation will always tend to be out of date. We can however
limit that by not being too specific. The original version saying
developers use gcc 4.3.x was just asking for trouble.
Dave
--
Ticket URL: <http://trac.sagemath.org/sage_trac/ticket/11081#comment:4>
Sage <http://www.sagemath.org>
Sage: Creating a Viable Open Source Alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica,
and MATLAB
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