[daip] Debian package of AIPS

[Eric Greisen]

Justin Pryzby writes:

I suspect that we do not entirely speak the same language but I will
try...

 > I am creating a package of AIPS for Debian GNU/Linux.  The goal is
 > that AIPS can be easily installed by any technical person with
 > "aptitude install aips".  I've packaged other astronomy software too: 
 > iraf,saods9,eclipse,sextractor,x11iraf,wcstools, plus many external
 > IRAF tasks.

    The most popular version of AIPS is always the current one, which
we change irregularly but often.  Many sites run a daily or weekly MNJ
(midnight job) to cvs update the source code and thenrecompile and
relink as needed (we do NOT use make).  That might be hard to package
but what do I know about packages?

 > 
 > I will be working with a couple local radio astronomers, but I'm not
 > presently familiar with AIPS.  I've some questions regarding how the
 > package should act.
 > 
 > Does AIPS *require* X11?  (Really, "Should aips be present in a
 > command-line application menu?").  

    Yes AIPS requires X11 - the user interacts with a "TV" display
which is an X11 window that emulates the old display hardware that
many of us still miss.  The user however still types into an xterm or
equivalent and can also interact with a Tektronix emulation in an
xterm.  The aips command like can take - in some situations really
requires - command-line arguments.  See man aips, type help aips
inside an aips session, or read Chapter 2 of the CookBook accesible
from 
          http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/aips/cook.html
so I do not know whether a command-line menu would suffice.  The user
will have to have his xterm to enter parameters and receive messages.

 > 
 > Can I remove the SUBLIB files from the runtime environment?  That
 > could shave another 10MB. 
 > 
 > 	 1.3M /usr/lib/aips/31DEC04/LINUX/LIBR/AIPSUB/SUBLIB
 > 	 890K /usr/lib/aips/31DEC04/LINUX/LIBR/APLLINUX/SUBLIB
 > 	 2.2M /usr/lib/aips/31DEC04/LINUX/LIBR/APLNOT/SUBLIB
 > 	 963K /usr/lib/aips/31DEC04/LINUX/LIBR/APLOOP/SUBLIB
 > 	 1.5M /usr/lib/aips/31DEC04/LINUX/LIBR/APLSUB/SUBLIB
 > 	 551K /usr/lib/aips/31DEC04/LINUX/LIBR/QNOT/SUBLIB
 > 	 740K /usr/lib/aips/31DEC04/LINUX/LIBR/QOOP/SUBLIB
 > 	 265K /usr/lib/aips/31DEC04/LINUX/LIBR/QPSAP/SUBLIB
 > 	  74K /usr/lib/aips/31DEC04/LINUX/LIBR/QSUB/SUBLIB
 > 	  44K /usr/lib/aips/31DEC04/LINUX/LIBR/YNOT/SUBLIB
 > 	 127K /usr/lib/aips/31DEC04/LINUX/LIBR/YSS/SUBLIB
 > 	 480K /usr/lib/aips/31DEC04/LINUX/LIBR/YSUB/SUBLIB

These are needed for link editing and can be removed if there will be
no updating of the code (i.e. no MNJ).

 > 
 > Does AIPS define its own programming language (like IRAF's SPP)?

I guess yes although the pre-processing is quite simple.  Mostly we do
includes either from a local include or from separate files and
convert HOLLERITH into something legal.  It is not an elaborate
language like IRAFs.

 > 
 > What, if any, AIPS datafiles are sharable across all hosts (of any
 > architecture/endianness)?  I have set up the compilation such that
 > AIPS root is /usr/lib/aips/; I would like to move as much as possible
 > to /usr/share/aips, creating the appropriate symlinks.  I have already
 > moved ./TEXT/ there; can you confirm that this is okay?

AIPS files are binary and cannot be shared across endedness.  Even the
control files are normally kept as a set for each host using aips (the
area called $DA00).  The TEXT area is fully sharable and things like
$LOAD are sharable between like machines.  We have 100s of machines
that run aips with only one copy of the source code and three versions
of the binaries (LINUX, SUL, and MACPPC).

 > 
 > Can AIPS use shared libraries (easily)?  I tried to do this with my
 > IRAF package, but IRAF does some crazy stuff which I don't understand,
 > so it didn't work.  Seems to me like I should just be able to change
 > all compile time linking to .a files to .so files.  And change the
 > compilation of the .so files, and install them to /usr/lib/aips/.
 > (Not so with iraf).

I would be uncertain about the aips libraries you listed above being
sharable.  It might work but I forget the issues with that - we once
worried about such things but disk is cheap now.  We certainly share
the system files without issue.  Perhaps you could remind of things
that would block sharing the libraries.

 > 
 > I will make my package available shortly.  One problem is the size.
 > If shared libraries are a possiblity, I will implement that first.

Eric Greisen