fenics team mailing list archive

[Kent-Andre Mardal <kent-and@xxxxxxxxx>]

On fr., 2008-08-01 at 13:12 +0100, Garth N. Wells wrote:
> 
> Anders Logg wrote:
> > On Fri, Aug 01, 2008 at 12:53:34PM +0100, Garth N. Wells wrote:
> >>
> >> Johannes Ring wrote:
> >>> On Fri, August 1, 2008 13:09, Kent-Andre Mardal wrote:
> >>>> On fr., 2008-08-01 at 12:20 +0200, Johannes Ring wrote:
> >>>>> On Fri, August 1, 2008 12:17, Garth N. Wells wrote:
> >>>>>> Johannes Ring wrote:
> >>>>>>> Hi Jiping,
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I think this segfault problem must have been introduced when I added
> >>>>>>> Trilinos as a dependency to the DOLFIN Ubuntu packages.
> >>>>>> Why do we have Trilinos as a dependency for the package? I don't see
> >>>>>> what this adds for the user at this stage.
> >>>>> Well, if it doesn't add anything to the user, I can simply remove it.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Johannes
> >>>>>
> >>>> Agree that dolfin should not depend on trilinos. Does the dolfin package
> >>>> depend on PETSc ?
> >>> Yes, it depends on PETSc.
> >>>
> >>>> More general, should the dolfin package be minimalistic or
> >>>> maximalistic ?
> >>> I thought maximalistic, but I guess this is up to others to decide.
> >>>
> >> I would say maximalistic in terms of available Ubuntu packages (e.g. 
> >> OpenMPI, PETSc, umfpack, etc), and minimalistic in terms of home-made 
> >> packages (e.g. Trilinos).
> >>
> >> On this note, SCOTCH is package under Ubuntu 8.10.
> >>
> >> Garth
> > 
> > I don't think it's a problem to depend on Trilinos and other
> > "home-made" packages now that they are available from the same
> > repository as the FEniCS packages.
> > 
> > The packages are in the same repository and built by the same person
> > so the Trilinos package can be trusted just as much as for example
> > the FFC package.
> >
> 
> Home-made packages increase the testing burden, while in the case of 
> Trilinos not substantially affecting functionality. If at some point 
> Trilinos provides substantial functionality, e.g. when parallel assembly 
> and solve is supported, then it could/should be a dependency.
> 

The Trilinos package adds a linear algebra library that is nice to play
with in Python. This might however not be evident from the examples and
demoes that have been added to dolfin so far. 

> Also, if an aim is to eventually have fenics accepted as Debian/Ubuntu 
> package isn't easier if as few new packages as possible are required?
> 
> Garth
> 

Might be. 

Kent