Comments on building GrADS from source

[Len Makin]

Hi Jennifer,
On Wed, 2005-10-26 at 10:34 -0400, Jennifer Adams wrote:
> Try installing this version of the gd library instead:
> ftp://grads.iges.org/grads/Supplibs/1.8/src/gd-1.7.3.tar.Z
Thanks, but prefer not to have to keep old versions of libraries about.
As I indicated, with the one simple change, all compiled and linked OK,
and our users are happily using the installed GrADS, so I'm happy with
gd 2.... (and grads).
> I don't know what SuSe and Fedora have in common, but you might want to
> try Pat Dumas's version of the auto-configure system (recently posted
> to gradsusr) and see how it works with version 1.7.3 of the gd library.
I have tried the version recently announced from
http://www.environnement.ens.fr/docs/fc-srpms/grads-1.9b4.tar.gz
but the new configure tests are now too strict. configure no longer
finds my version of udunits, even though the CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS had
the appropriate  -I/tools/udunits -L/tools/udunits settings. Your
original configure worked fine, detecting the non-standard locations via
these FLAGS.
My comment for Patrice would be to let the FLAGS be part of the
environment for the testing rather than enforce fixed ideas on where
things should be. Maybe that's what he intends anyway? He has
implemented configure options allowing the specification of non-standard
locations for hdf4 and netcdf (Applause!), but not for udunits. If the
FLAGS were checked, perhaps none of these would be necessary in my case.
In the general case, we probably need another option to specify
configure  --with-udunits=<location>
YMMV.
> We do plan to put out a non-beta version of 1.9 -- there are still a
> few bugs that need to be fixed and I am working on them as time allows.
>  The supplibs are another big problem -- your issues with the gd library
> are a perfect example.
....
The supplibs thing seems to be unusual among the packages I have
built/installed. Usually there is just some sort of list of pre-
requisites, saying something like:
Needs libxxx version 99 or greater
      libyyy version 555 or greater
It seems to be rare to find a pre-requisite for an older (obsolete?)
version of something, and even rarer (but very thoughtful) if such older
versions are supplied with the package. I guess HDF did similar things
for netcdf.
Anyway, that's just 2c worth (or less) from me.
> I could say a lot more, but will restrain myself and leave it at this:
> right now our resources are too limited to provide the complete support
> the community really needs.
OK. I get the picture. We're in a similar position, but it seems it's
the way of the world (and budgets ;-). Thanks for the prompt and helpful
response.
Cheers,
        Len
Len.Makin at csiro.au:+61 3 9669 8109:
CSIRO High Performance Scientific Computing
CSIRO/Bureau of Meteorology
High Performance Computing and Communications Centre
(11th floor S, 700 Collins St)
G.P.O. Box 1289, Melbourne 3001, Vic, AUSTRALIA