[vtk-developers] Debian VTK packages

[Maitland Bottoms]

Hi,

At long last, reports are coming in from Debian project build machines:
http://www.vtk.org/Testing/Dashboard/20020917-0300-Nightly/Dashboard.html
(See the Experimental Builds section).
So far at least alpha, ia64, powerpc and s390 have appeared. They are
the fast ones, after all. (i386 got built on my machine a couple of
days ago.)

What is happening?
 Binary packages are being compiled from source with Build Names of
 the form Debian-vtk_4.0-1_ARCH.deb where ARCH is a computer processor
 architecture supported by the Debian project. They are: i386 m69k
 sparc alpha powerpc arm mips mipsel hppa ia64 s390.

Debian?
 The Universal Operating System.
 http://www.debian.org/
 Now with VTK 4!

VTK?
 The Visualization ToolKit: 3D computer graphics, image processing, and visualization
 http://www.vtk.org/
 with C++, Tcl/Tk, Python (and Java) library bindings.

Where do these binary packages end up?
 A history of Debian VTK builds is available at:
 http://buildd.debian.org/build.php?arch=&pkg=vtk
 Newly built packages enter the Debian package pool, tagged for the
 "unstable" distribution (aka "Sid"). If no bugs are filed against
 them, after a while they migrate to the "testing" distribution
 (currently "sarge"). At some time in the future the testing
 distribution will freeze and transform into the next stable released
 Debian version.

 The package pool for VTK is:
 http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/v/vtk/
 among other mirrors.

Can these new binary packages run on the current stable Debian
distribution (3.0 aka "woody")?
 No. Not likely anyways. Mainly due to my choice of using
 gcc-3.2. However it is quite possible to build VTK 4.0 Debian
 packages on and for the current stable system. I may put up a set for
 i386 and sparc soon.

Is there one place to look up VTK bugs filed in the Debian bug
tracking system?
 Yes. 
 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=vtk&repeatmerged=yes

Why is this good for Debian users?
 Debian users, upon learning about VTK, can simply run 'apt-get
 install vtk-tcl' or 'apt-get install python-vtk' and they will have
 everything they need to start writing scripts.

 At this time the vtk source package provides the following binary
 packages: 
    vtk-tcl python-vtk vtk-doc libvtk4 libvtk4-dev vtk-examples
 and there is also a vtkdata package.

Why is this good for Debian developers?
 Introduction to the VTK community, with whom we share goals of
 cross-platform development and source code availability.
 Exposure to code that uses build-time regression testing, and others
 who are concerned with software quality engineering and release
 management in an environment teeming with volunteer coders.

Why is this good for the VTK community?
 11 architectures to compile on, tracking recent compiler versions,
 and providing feedback on such things as 32/64 bit implementation,
 endian issues, tracking of Tcl and Python versions. In the near term
 I expect the transition to XFree86 4.2.1.

What took so long in closing bug #140160: VTK 4.0 is released?
 Readying VTK 3.1.2 for inclusion in Debian 3.0 (woody).
 Getting cmake packaged and into Debian.
 - Oh, that involved getting changes into CMake upstream for
   "DESTDIR" support in 'make install' and rpath control.
 Getting the dart-client package into Debian.
 Getting vtkdata package into Debian.
 Actually packaging VTK 4.0, getting around rpath, soname, and
  installation issues, learning about Python insides, etc.
 Trying some Java dead-ends.
 Setting up clean build environments on my own Debian systems.
 At least I have learned a few things. It really didn't take so long
 after all.

What about Java?
 Well, Debian is about Free Software: http://www.debian.org/intro/free
 and the Debian Free Software guidelines
 (http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines) don't mesh well
 with the kind of licenses available in the Java world.

 The GCJ project appears to be approaching readiness to support
 something like VTK Real Soon Now.

What about newer VTK from CVS? (4.0 is so old!)
 Debian developers like upstream official releases. The good news is
 that I expect it will take less than 6 months between the next VTK
 release and its upload to Debian. Maybe 6 hours?

Hope this message helps.

Your humble Debian VTK packages maintainer,
 -Maitland