[Fluxus] google soc project ideas

[Glauber Alex Dias Prado]

Dave Griffiths <dave at pawfal.org> writes:

> Hi Matt,
>
> On Mon, 2009-03-09 at 12:33 -0400, Matt Jadud wrote:
>> On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 8:43 AM, Dave Griffiths <dave at pawfal.org> wrote:
>> > I'd also like to go in the other direction at the same time - having a
>> > stripped down fluxus that can be easily distributed as binary. I'm
>> > thinking it would take the form of a single executable with most things
>> > removed - eg no sound processing, ode, midi, etc.
>> 
>> Hi Dave,
>> 
>> Having the ability to go from source to installer without any hoops is
>> a huge plus for any project. Right now, it is daunting to think about
>> using Fluxus with students in any context, because it looks like a lot
>> of work to get set up.
>> 
>> Anything that makes the tool easier to build (for developers) and
>> install (for users) is a big win, in my book. I'd love to be able to
>> offer a cross-listed course with the art department at my college,
>> where we explore algorithmic approaches to digital art, and explore
>> the live production of art through tools like Fluxus. If you strip the
>> sound processing, you might strip too much of the interesting
>> bits---but if there are things that can make it easier for people too
>> lazy/busy to install/build everything (but have a lot of Scheme
>> experience), that would be awesome, and probably a long-term win.
>> 
>> Mind you, I haven't sat down and tried to put together a livecoding
>> rig on any of our classroom machines. Nor have I asked our admin to
>> look into it. So, perhaps this is already possible, and I'm just
>> uninformed. (Entirely possible!)
>> 
>> In other words, I love watching what your tools can be used to
>> produce, but need something that is closer to the PLT Scheme tools in
>> terms of installation complexity before I dive in. (Or, if you prefer,
>> I should be able to "drag-and-drop" and be done with a Fluxus
>> install.) If that is already the case, my apologies for suggesting!
>
> This is something I'm quite concerned with, and wondering how it got to
> be this way. I'd like more input on measures we can take to simplify
> this situation.
>
> On Ubuntu I think the main problem is in fact PLT scheme, as the
> standard version always old, and doesn't include the dynamic libraries,
> so you need to download and build it from scratch. We could take on
> responsibility for the PLT scheme .debs and provide one ourselves I
> suppose, but it seems a bit much.
>
> I generally install fluxus by installing all the development versions of
> the libs via a package manager, build and install the latest plt scheme
> then build and install fluxus.
>
> On mac I think the problem is largely done away with due to Gabor's hard
> work packaging it for that platform, but I think it embeds it's own copy
> of the whole of PLT.
>
> One thing I might try is seeing how dependant fluxus is to PLT and all
> the collects - it should be possible to make it work with just mzscheme.
>
> Going the other way - is it possible to package binaries with planet?
>
> cheers,
>
> dave

Sorry Dave i dont have an answer to your last question but i have 
more questions :). If we packaged the binary with all the libs either
statically compiled or bundled on a lib dir and perhaps wrapping a
fluxus.sh with a LD_LIBRARY_PATH to it.

Which could also be smart enough to search the environment for possible
missing libraries that will not be on this dir lib like when you ldd
fluxus and there are missing ones, search for those make the proper
linking eg, ln -s /usr/lib/libFLAC.so.9
/path/to/fluxus/lib/libFLAC.so.8, for the hypothetical case it was
compiled against version 8 but the system has version 9.

My main question is how would we handle the graphics driver libraries?
Would we have to have a binary for each board? or in this particular
case(academical use) could we link it statically to opengl? I remember
doing this on the past but dont remember exactly how i did. Also what do
you think? Im interested on solving this problem cause i want to use
fluxus on a lab too :).

cheers,
glauber.