dolfin team mailing list archive

[Barry Smith <petsc-maint@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

  Take a look at 
http://akaimbatman.blogspot.com/2005/06/linux-desktop-distribution_111888594099190449.html

I use the Mac all the time now and just love the fact that Applications
and libraries (called Frameworks) are completely self-contained objects that you
can move around at will and don't leave "droppings" all over the place like in 
classic Unix (by droppings I mean some stuff in /usr/lib some in /usr/include 
some in /usr/bin some in /usr/man etc etc).

  Barry



On Tue, 5 Jul 2005, Faheem Mitha wrote:

> 
> 
> On Tue, 5 Jul 2005, Barry Smith wrote:
> 
> > 
> > > As far as I can see, the information that is being hardwired into the
> > > PETSc
> > > library files is the installation          location of the PETSc library
> > > files
> > > themselves. Correct me if I'm wrong.
> > 
> >  In the PETSc shared libraries are hardwired the locations of the PETSc
> > dynamic
> > libraries (the dynamic libraries contain all the actual implementations
> > while
> > the shared libraries (what you link against) contain the user API
> > functions).
> > If we do not hardwire, we have no way of finding the dynamic libraries.
> 
> I see. What are examples of shared/dynamic library files in PETSc? I assume
> both are installed?
> 
> > > If the idea is so that the linker can find the library at runtime, that is
> > > what standard locations like /usr/lib are for, and search paths for the
> > > linker
> > > can also be set in /etc/ld.so.conf.
> > 
> >  /usr/lib reminds me about the old days of Windows where you dump all your
> > dlls into System32 (even Microsoft finally figured out this was a stupid
> > idea).
> 
> I'm not sure why this is a stupid idea. The whole Unix world uses this, as far
> as I know, and has done so for a long time.
> 
> > And changing a file like /etc/ld.so.conf is insane.
> 
> /etc/ld.so.conf is not much used. On my 3 yr old Debian installation, it is
> 
> /usr/X11R6/lib
> /usr/lib/3dnow/atlas
> /usr/lib/atlas/3dnow
> /usr/lib/3dnow
> /usr/lib/atlas
> 
> >  Now we could require the user to set PETSC_DIR or something similar at
> > RUNTIME
> > to locate the dynamic libraries, but I dislike that.
> 
> >  Given all this new information I'm going to have to rethink the entire
> > process.
> 
> Ok.                                                                Faheem.
> 
>