Regarding math software maxima and wxmaxima

[pbowyer]

I've been able to build, in my personal repository under KDE4, the RPM files for the following packages:
maxima-5.20.1 which I downloaded as a source tarball.
wxmaxima-0.8.4 which I downloaded as a source tarball.
gcl-2.6.8pre which I got from CVS.

These supersede the versions that are available in the PCLinuxOS repository except for wxmaxima, which is not currently in the PCLinuxOS repository. The wxmaxima package is a GUI frontend for maxima which I find somewhat like Mathcad under MSWindows and which I like better than xmaxima, the Tcl/Tk frontend provided with maxima. The folks at maxima may not agree with me on that subject.

I'm almost ready to do the same for the following, which are upgrades to the above:
maxima-5.21.1plus which I got from CVS.
wxmaxima-0.8.5 which I downloaded as a source tarball.

I'd like to mention that I had help from the people who build the software listed above in getting the CVS source files and I'd like to voice my appreciation for their assistance. I would have had much more difficulty packaging without their assistance.

Sometime in August of this year there will be an official release of:
maxima-5.22.0 as a source tarball which I will try to package.
and there might be another release of wxmaxima also.

As I mentioned, these were packaged under PCLinuxOS-2010-KDE4 so there might be issues with dependencies since I did not use MiniMe as the system for my packaging efforts. I suppose I could set up a MiniMe system just for packaging if necessary.

Is there any interest in upgrading the PCLinuxOS repositories with my home-built RPM files and if so, how do I go about doing so? Keep in mind that I'd recommend waiting until after August because there are known issues with maxima in the versions I've mentioned, but I also know maxima will probably always have unresolved issues because it is a work-in-progress.

[Ector]

Hi pbowyer

I also think that wxmaxima is better than xmaxima GUI. I still use 0.8.3 version which I have compiled myself some time ago. It would be great to add this app to the repository and have someone who will keep it up to date.

[Neal ManBear]

pbowyer,
The information you need about packaging for PCLinuxOS and submitting SRPMs (src.rpm) is available in this section of the forum.

[rafo]

I just installed xmaxima (5.20.1-1). It would be nice to have wxmaxima however! I don't mind doing some tinkering if someone has a description of how to do it.

[Neal ManBear]

I just installed xmaxima (5.20.1-1). It would be nice to have wxmaxima however! I don't mind doing some tinkering if someone has a description of how to do it.

Read the sticky topics here and the documentation linked to, if you want to package. All of the info you need is available in this section.

[pbowyer]

I just installed xmaxima (5.20.1-1). It would be nice to have wxmaxima however! I don't mind doing some tinkering if someone has a description of how to do it.

rafo:

I have working rpm spec files for gcl-2.6.8pre, maxima-5.22.1 and wxmaxima-0.8.5 that I have installed in my personal repository under PCLinuxOS-2010/KDE4 using the utilities in pkgutils-0.1.5 from the repository.

I haven't gotten around to trying to set up a minime installation to use to make submittable rpms, but you're welcome to the info I have if you want to try packaging them yourself.

The spec for gcl-2.6.8pre (Gnu Common Lisp, which seems to be the fastest, but may have issues I haven't yet discovered) requires downloading the source from a CVS site, but I have the commands that I used that you are welcome to if you desire them.

There are also CVS commands that will get you the latest maxima source that you can package into a rpm for installation in a personal repository if you would like to do so.

ADDED 9/18/2010:
It turns out that I cannot set up a minime installation for packaging at this time because of the problem described in this link, which might also prevent you from packaging for your own use.
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,79531.0.html

[rafo]

Hi pbowyer,

thanks for sharing your description. I realize now that my notifications settings in this forum were wrong, so I didn't notice until now that you had posted.

In the meantime I found that building wxMaxima from source seems to be doable. What I did was

- uninstall all maxima-related software (in Synaptic)
- uninstall the wxGTK2.8 2.8.10-2pclos2010 package completely
- install libwxgtk2.8-devel 2.8.10-3pclos2010
- reinstall maxima only (getting 5.20.1-1pclos2010)
- download the wxmaxima source tarball (version 0.8.6)
- unpack as root, then ./configure; make; make install; (installs to /usr/local)

Fingers crossed, I haven't done a lot of testing yet...

[pbowyer]

rafo:

You're working with a wxmaxima release that is slightly later than the one I put into service, but I'd like to point out that it might be worthwhile to check your configure options by doing (from the source directory) './configure --help | less' and checking if there is something about unicode support. You can also do 'Help About' from a wxmaxima session and it should tell you if you have unicode support.

I had to add '--with-wx-config=wx-config-unicode' to my configure invocation to enable the use of Greek characters in my wxmaxima sessions.

Also, in my rpm spec file for wxmaxima-0.8.5 I have listed:
Requires: gtk2, libxml2, wxGTK2.8
BuildRequires: libxml2-devel, libwxgtk2.8-devel, libwxgtku2.8-devel, wxGTK2.8-devel

I'll update my personal installation of wxmaxima some day to 0.8.6 to see if I find it any better, but for now what I have is working fine.

[travisN000]

ADDED 9/18/2010:
It turns out that I cannot set up a minime installation for packaging at this time because of the problem described in this link, which might also prevent you from packaging for your own use.
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,79531.0.html

The task-packaging-kde4 package should no longer be used; try pkgutils-kde with minime

..also note, that you must physically click the username BEFORE clicking OK when prompted for it at install (..or if you re-run the mkrepo script at a later time).  This will be fixed shortly.

[pbowyer]

Thank you, travisn000:

When I get some free time, I'll set up a minime installation for packaging to see if what I have is acceptable.