[Radiance-dev] Re: Radiance in Debian

[Gregory J. Ward]

Hi Bernd,

I'm moving this discussion to radiance-dev, since that's where it  
really belongs.  (Feel free to subscribe if you aren't.)

Having compatibility links as an option during installation is fine  
with me if it defaults to "yes" or provides a clear explanation of  
the pitfalls of not installing the links.  I guess we only need a  
link for genbox at this point, though I would like to keep "rview" in  
there as well for consistency with extant documentation.

None of the tools look in the $RAYPATH directories for executables,  
and I don't store any there.

-Greg

> From: Bernd Zeimetz <bernd at bzed.de>
> Date: October 22, 2007 1:25:15 PM PDT
>
> Hi Greg,
>
>> On closer inspection, my thought to check for "genbox" on inline
>> commands and print a deprecated warning isn't all that workable,  
>> since
>> there are so many places in Radiance where inline commands are
>> interpreted.  It would require a lot of ugly and temporary code
>> changes.  A better solution is to insert a "genbox" shell script that
>> prints out the deprecated message before calling "genrbox."  However,
>> this still leaves an executable in the Radiance binary directory with
>> the "genbox" name conflict, at least temporarily.  Unceremoniously
>> getting rid of genbox altogether would break 3/4 of the scene  
>> files out
>> there.  This is not just a command entered by users -- it's in all  
>> our
>> scene descriptions, and changing it means changing thousands of user
>> files.  Even if it's only a simple substitution, that's a lot to  
>> ask for
>> everyone to go in and change their data to accommodate a molecular
>> modeling system that in all likelihood hasn't yet caused a  
>> conflict for
>> any of us.
>
> Yeah, but the same problem have the molecular guys with their  
> scripts...
> Also instead of changing scripts I'd add a link, nothing really
> complicated imho.
>
>> I'm out of ideas.  Anyone else with a brainstorm on this?
>
> Question: Do the tools search in $RAYPATH for executables, too?
>
> One idea: While installing the package I could ask the user if he'd  
> like
> to have compatibility links created and add those links. I'd have to
> check if something like that would be allowed by the policy, though.
> At least I can warn them.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bernd