From the Trenches: MOTU Science

[kleeman]

Also laserjock scilab 4 cannot install on amd64 because it depends on scilab-bin which in amd64 is still only at the 3 version.

[LaserJock]

Yeah, once I get back from the Ubuntu Developer Summit and get research back in line the MOTU Science team will get cracking on Feisty. Sometimes we get a little overwhelmed with bug reports but I'd much rather have that then broken software that I don't know about. I'm happy to see people submitting bug reports. The more information we get, the better we can get scientific software really rocking for Feisty.

-LaserJock

P.S. also, if people are interested, we can organize some Science Bug Days where anybody can help us squash some bugs.

[kleeman]

Sounds good laserjock. BTW re the scilab problem on amd64, I downloaded the scilab dsc, diff and orig.tar.gz files and compiled the proper scilab-bin version 4 package without issue at all using "fakeroot debian/rules binary". If anyone wants it let me know.

[UbuWu]

I would really like to see bibus packages for ubuntu.

[LaserJock]

Yeah, I added bibus to our "packages we want" list. I honestly thought it was already in Ubuntu. The bibus website has a debian/ubuntu repo so I think it shouldn't be too hard to get it into universe.

[Steveire]

What about kbibtex from this repo? It integrates as a KPart into Kile. There was a release a couple of months ago.
Also is it standard for packages to be updated if there is a more recent version than the edgy one, or should I point those out to you guys so that they get updated? (eg k3dsurf)

Is the 'packages we want list' publically available?

[LaserJock]

What about kbibtex from this repo? It integrates as a KPart into Kile. There was a release a couple of months ago.
Also is it standard for packages to be updated if there is a more recent version than the edgy one, or should I point those out to you guys so that they get updated? (eg k3dsurf)

Is the 'packages we want list' publically available?

The list is on http://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/Teams/Science .

Here's a little rundown of how we update the versions in the development release:

1. When the the dev release (feisty in this case) is opened shortly after the previous release (edgy) is released, it starts out as just a copy of the previous release.

2. Packages that Ubuntu hasn't changed in the previous release from Debian get semi-automatically synced over, this process is pretty much done I think for feisty.

3. Packages that were changed in Ubuntu have to one-by-one manually examined to see if the Ubuntu changes are still needed. That's called merging.

4. This process continues and new packages are added until the Upstream Version Freeze and Feature Freeze (see http://wiki.ubuntu.com/FeistyReleaseSchedule). After this time new packages and new versions of the upstream (the version we get from the authors) are only allowed by an exception process.

5. After the freezes we focus on bug fixing the packages that we have until the dev release is finally released out to the world.

That's probably way more then what you wanted but it's interesting to see how this is all done.

You can compare the versions of k3dsurf in Debian and Ubuntu by looking at the lists that are on the MOTU Science wiki page. http://tiber.tauware.de/~laserjock/m...eisty/all.html will give you an overview of science packages in Feisty.

-LaserJock

P.S. I added kbibtex to "the list"

[Steveire]

KTechlab is on the list, but it is in universe already.

I see kbibtex is already in debian unstable. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/kbibtex. As a case study, what can I do to get this package into fiesty universe apart from asking you to take care of it? Can packages like this be put into edgy backports?

Is your page generated automatically?

[LaserJock]

KTechlab is on the list, but it is in universe already.

I see kbibtex is already in debian unstable. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/kde/kbibtex. As a case study, what can I do to get this package into fiesty universe apart from asking you to take care of it? Can packages like this be put into edgy backports?

Is your page generated automatically?

Thanks for the KTechlab catch. We picked it up in Edgy.

Well, actually kbibtex was brought into Feisty 6 days ago. At the beginning of the dev release one of the archive admins goes through and finds packages that have been introduced into Debian since our last release and adds them. Unfortunately our backporting policy doesn't allow us to add completely new packages so it won't be in Edgy.

The lists for feisty under "Ubuntu and Debian Packages" on the wiki page are updated daily. The problem is that the misc package list is maintained by hand. It's a human judgment call to decide what is "scientific". I grab the science, math, and electronics sections of the archive automatically, it's only the ones in other sections that I have to add by hand.

-LaserJock

[ssam]

i'd like to see lybniz graphing calculator in feisty (though i am biased as i one of the developers.)

i have uploaded it to REVU http://revu.tauware.de/details.py?upid=3716