\start
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2011 23:21:15 +0000
From: Alan Hutchinson
To: list
Subject: Installation on Debian Linux (Lenny) failed.

Dear Sir
Thank you for Axiom.  I have used it once before on another Linux machine,
and it did what I wanted.

This is a Debian "Lenny" Linux installation which seems to be behaving
well.  It is usually updated whenever the update notifier suggests.  Its
basic features are
Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.26-2-686
Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.93GHz
Main Memory
  Memory Range: 0x00000000-0x1f7effff (rw)
  Memory Size: 504 MB

I downloaded the most recent available copy of Axiom from your web page
  axiom-debian-sept2010-bin.tgz
and tried to install it this evening.  The machine ran hard for maybe about
4 hours, and reported several regression test failures.
While I was watching it, the simple memory monitor on the top panel
suggested that it never had to use swap space as virtual memory.
A summary of the commands I typed, and the output from "make", should be
attached.
Could you please tell me if I have done anything wrong?

Best wishes
Alan Hutchinson.

--0016e644cef864e45e04990d86e6

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--0016e644cef864e45e04990d86e6--

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Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2011 12:49:38 -0500
From: Tim Daly
To: list
Subject: Re: Installation on Debian Linux (Lenny) failed.

  Alan,

I am mildly confused. You said you downloaded the -bin version.
There is no need to run 'make'. The steps are:

tar -zxf axiom-debian-sept2010-bin.tgz
cd axiom
export AXIOM=`pwd`/mnt/debian
export PATH=$AXIOM/bin:$PATH
axiom

Try this and let me know if it works.

On 1/4/2011 6:21 PM, Alan Hutchinson wrote:
> Dear Sir
> Thank you for Axiom.  I have used it once before on another Linux 
> machine, and it did what I wanted.
>
> This is a Debian "Lenny" Linux installation which seems to be behaving 
> well.  It is usually updated whenever the update notifier suggests.  
> Its basic features are
> Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.26-2-686
> Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.93GHz
> Main Memory
>   Memory Range: 0x00000000-0x1f7effff (rw)
>   Memory Size: 504 MB
>
> I downloaded the most recent available copy of Axiom from your web page
>   axiom-debian-sept2010-bin.tgz
> and tried to install it this evening.  The machine ran hard for maybe 
> about 4 hours, and reported several regression test failures.
> While I was watching it, the simple memory monitor on the top panel 
> suggested that it never had to use swap space as virtual memory.
> A summary of the commands I typed, and the output from "make", should 
> be attached.
> Could you please tell me if I have done anything wrong?

\start
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:34:05 +0000
From: Alan Hutchinson
To: list
Subject: compiling from source on Debian Lenny

Hello
Thanks again for Axiom.
I am trying to compile it from the file "axiom-sept2010-src.tgz".
I have tried to follow all the instructions in
  http://axiom-developer.org/axiom-website/download.html
and I think I have got them all right.
As before, the regression tests report just a few errors.

The only deviations I have consciously made from the compilation
instructions are additions of two bash scripts called
  notdir
  shell
in
  /usr/local/bin
They are called early in the main Makefile.  It seems that Debian Lenny does
not have these programs.
The scripts may not work as intended on all inputs, but they seem adequate
for this job.

The result seems to be a working program.  When it starts, it announces
                        AXIOM Computer Algebra System
                       Version: Axiom (November 2010)
              Timestamp: Tuesday January 11, 2011 at 14:54:35
even though the source was dated "sept2010".  This may be because I
downloaded
  //axiom.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/axiom/axiom
as advised in the download web page
  http://axiom-developer.org/axiom-website/download.html

Two questions and guesses:

1  Have I got a "GOLD" version of Axiom, or is this a "SILVER" version with
unstable updates added from the git repository?

2  The tests I have noticed which fail are regression tests.  I have not
noticed the make system run any other kinds of tests.
   Are they appropriate?  Should I be running a different test suite?
   If so, what shell variable should be set before starting "make", and to
what value?

\start
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 15:50:46 -0500
From: Tim Daly
To: list
Subject: Re: compiling from source on Debian Lenny

On 1/11/2011 2:34 PM, Alan Hutchinson wrote:
> Hello
> Thanks again for Axiom.
> I am trying to compile it from the file "axiom-sept2010-src.tgz".
> I have tried to follow all the instructions in
> http://axiom-developer.org/axiom-website/download.html
> and I think I have got them all right.
> As before, the regression tests report just a few errors.
>
> The only deviations I have consciously made from the compilation 
> instructions are additions of two bash scripts called
>   notdir
>   shell
> in
>   /usr/local/bin
> They are called early in the main Makefile.  It seems that Debian 
> Lenny does not have these programs.
> The scripts may not work as intended on all inputs, but they seem 
> adequate for this job.
Yes, these are make gnu-isms that were added a long
time ago. They are only used for trivial things.
>
> The result seems to be a working program.  When it starts, it announces
>                         AXIOM Computer Algebra System
>                        Version: Axiom (November 2010)
>               Timestamp: Tuesday January 11, 2011 at 14:54:35
> even though the source was dated "sept2010".  This may be because I 
> downloaded
>   //axiom.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/axiom/axiom 
> <http://axiom.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/axiom/axiom>
> as advised in the download web page
> http://axiom-developer.org/axiom-website/download.html

The timestamp is the time you compiled Axiom.

I am mildly surprised that it is announcing that it is
the November sources though. It isn't important because
the changes are not user-visible except in the documentation.

>
> Two questions and guesses:
>
> 1  Have I got a "GOLD" version of Axiom, or is this a "SILVER" version 
> with unstable updates added from the git repository?
The Gold version is released every 2 months as a stable version.
The axiom-developer download page contains Gold versions. The
github release is also a Gold version. If you visit
http://axiom-developer.org/axiom-website/releasenotes.html
you can see what changed between Gold releases.

The silver versions are at sourceforge.org and savannah.org.

The silver versions are released potentially several times a day
depending on how active I am. Silver releases are the last tested
version on my machine. They may not necessarily run everywhere.
They represent the bleeding, but tested, edge of code.

I cannot think of a good reason to use Silver releases.
They are posted so that all development is public. If you visit
http://axiom-developer.org/axiom-website/patches.html#latest
you can see what patches were applied since the last Gold release.
Scroll backward and you can see every patch applied since Nov, 2007

If you are interested in any particular patch you can click on
the date field and see the diff-Naur patch itself as in:
http://axiom-developer.org/axiom-website/patches/20110110.01.tpd.patch
which was applied and tested last night. Patches are named by the year
(2011), month (01), day (10), number that day (01), and author (tpd)

I am currently rewriting the system to use only latex and eliminate
the use of noweb. End users will not care about this change but it
is one less package dependency.


>
> 2  The tests I have noticed which fail are regression tests.  I have 
> not noticed the make system run any other kinds of tests.
>    Are they appropriate?  Should I be running a different test suite?
>    If so, what shell variable should be set before starting "make", 
> and to what value?
The system runs all of the available tests. Some of the tests
are failing but not in any important way. Some of the tests are
failing deliberately to test cases that should fail. I plan to
move these out of the default test suite but that is a very low
priority issue. Ignore the failing tests.

There are no interesting shell variables for user use.
You can watch more details of the build with the command line:
    make NOISE=
which turns on all of the output of the compiles and tests.
This isn't necessary as the test output lives in int/input/*.output
and the results of test success or failure is in int/input/*.regress

\start
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 09:35:47 -0500
From: Tim Daly
To: Alan Hutchinson
Subject: Re: compiling from source on Debian Lenny

On 1/12/2011 6:42 AM, Alan Hutchinson wrote:
> Hello Tim
> Thanks very much for your time.
> I should have made clear: I don't want software at the "bleeding 
> edge".  I am trying to be sure that the system I run is to "Gold" 
> standard.  There are enough complications in my life already.
In that case, download the sources from axiom-developer.org
>
> Are you prepared to answer two more questions?
>  - It seems that "sourceforge.org <http://sourceforge.org>" and 
> "sourceforge.net <http://sourceforge.net>" are the same.  You wrote
>       The silver versions are at sourceforge.org 
> <http://sourceforge.org/> and savannah.org <http://savannah.org/>.
>    Does that mean the git repository which I copied from there will 
> contain "Silver" material?
Yes, those sites contain silver material.
>  - Can you say roughly how many tests are likely to fail?  The one 
> time I let them run to completion, there were 13 such.  The only 
> summary I still have of the test output will be attached.  One in 
> particular, using file richlog300-391, produced 164 errors from 460 
> stanzas.

The failing test cases you see are normally failing.

Many of the tasks I undertake will take a very long
time to complete due to the complex nature of the problems.
I write tests to ensure that I remember the problems that
need to be fixed. Think of it as test-driven development.

One of those tasks is the integration of Albert Rich's
pattern matching software for integration. I have created
several thousand test cases as part of this work. The
test cases are all in the richXXX files. They contain
examples which Axiom cannot compute but which will be
solved when I finish Albert's new work.

I am undertaking new research with Albert's work, trying
to integrate ideas from David Parnas to create a more
complete and theoretically sound ordered organization on
which to base some theory ideas I have.

As a policy, all Axiom test cases are run all the time.

These test cases are "known failure" cases and are not
a cause for alarm. As I said, I ought to split these
failing cases into a separate class but that is a low
priority item since the failures will eventually go away.
Some of them are marked in the regress files as ok to fail.
I will mark more of them and filter the results accordingly.

There was a long and painful discussion on the mailing
list about working in public. We agreed that there would
be "time-boxed" Gold releases of Axiom every 2 months and
that all of my work would be immediately posted in Silver.

The advocates of that policy have left to create their
own projects (where they do not follow the policy they
advocated) but the Axiom policy still exists. Thus,
you get to see "intermediate states" of work that can
take a year or more to complete.




