Re: gd library porting

Hi Paul!
> I'm just a little concerned about adding in big
> library dependencies to octave-forge when small dependencies
> will do. 
I did a  

]#ldd /usr/lib/libgd.so

and I found libraries to be 
libfreetype, libjpeg, libpng12, libz and of course libm, and libc.
In the newer versions(I use GD 1.86), I guess libgif or something 
like that is needed.

I believe you already have libjpeg and libpng12 in octave-forge, or 
most X users have them as a part of the GNU/Linux installation. I beleive
that library dependencies are not very big. 

You must add on  zlib and freetype to the existing things, for packaging 
gd-Octave. They might be big.


> There is also a minor issue of library size.
gd library itself occupies 184Kb space.
libfreetype wants 1016Kb.
zlib wants 56kb

Finally the binding itself
gd.oct wants 252kb, and will need more space in future.

These are un'strip'ped versions, and we can save a few more
bytes by stripping symbols from the .SO

As for the rest, when we complete doing gd-octave, its your
choice to add our package port to the octave-forge tree.

GD-Octave need not be distributed as a cumpulsory part of 
octave-forge. YOu can put it along with the optional downloads,
packages.
 
> BTW, for even more fun, look at matplotlib which is written for
> Python.  They are hooked up to something which can
> parse a TeX-like syntax and produce nice mathematical
> layout.  You want to wrap matplotlib for use in Octave?
I do want to do it. I may ask for some time, a few months 
maybe before I can show you anything thats productive. I looked
at matplotlib, and it is amazing. Now I am pretty suspicious about
the licensing terms matplotlib uses. It seems free, but is it GPL
compatible? Well these I will findout, and solve it. But anyone in
a hurry dont wait for me, the tortoise,some Hare's going there already.

Finally thanks paul, for making me aware of problems involved in 
porting libraries and packaging them.

Cheers
Muthu.

Life is beautiful.
http://cybernetics.freewebspace.com

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