On Thu, 30. Aug 10:05, Nathaniel Echols wrote:
This is because we want people to be able to install and use CCTBX with minimal fuss, instead of wasting days trying to put together all of the third-party libraries and dealing with the inevitable compile-and-link problems. (Even for the libraries like Boost or SCons that are likely to be available on Linux distributions, there is no guarantee that the version installed by "apt-get" et al. will actually be compatible with our code.) Most users don't like dealing with this - and it is a huge barrier to adoption.
At any rate, there's no requirement that these packages be distributed with CCTBX (and they're not part of the SVN repository on SF); however, the binary bundles would be absolutely useless without them. Yeah I understand the reasons if you distribute binary bundles but source bundles? Normally if I want to compile something myself I'm aware of the work I'll have to do. Also cctbx is not mainstream as I understand it. It's for software developers. And I naively believe software developers know how to compile and install software :D. End-Users are using Phenix or Olex2 etc. Olex2 for example is bundling cctbx too so mainstream users are normally not confronted with that. But I don't want to change your distribute system I'd just think it'd be nice to have an additional minimal unbundled package for freaks like myself ;).
About the compatibility issues it would be nice to have a check for a specific library and version. How can I be sure it will work with a specific shlib version? Are you just using your test system to evaluate? I ran the tests with my system libraries and they worked fine is this a guarantee for me that it's working? kind regards Radi