[Pkg-scicomp-devel] Bug#578052: Bug#578052: Bug#578052: [atlas] providing >20 separate optimized library packages is insane

Fabian Greffrath fabian at greffrath.com
Mon Apr 19 08:21:25 UTC 2010


Am 18.04.2010 11:16, schrieb Sylvestre Ledru:
> By the way, since it has been this way for a decade, would you mind
> if I lower the importance of this bug ?

Please set the severity to what you consider appropriate.

> Sorry but I don't know yet.

I've spent some though about this issue over the weekend. Please allow 
me to give the following suggestion. (Disclaimer: (1) I do not really 
care about these libraries and do not even consider myself a typical 
user of them; I have just become curious about the Debian packaging. 
(2) I don't know how far these libraries are interconnected and if 
they are ABI-compatible in a way that allows for all possible 
combinations of atlas, lapack and blas libraries.)

- I would split up the shared atlas libraries into 3 packages:
   * libatlas3gf (contains the non-blas, non-atlas libraries)
   * liblapack-atlas3gf (contains the atlas-variant of lapack)
   * libblas-atlas3gf (contains the atlas-variants of blas)

- In each of these shared library packages, I would install the
   optimized libraries into the appropriate subdirectories under
   /usr/lib to let the linker select the flavour.

- Just like mail-transport-agent, make sure that only one package
   that provides the required ABI is actually installed:
   * liblapack-atlas3gf would Provide and Conflict liblapack3gf
   * libblas-atlas3gf would Provide and Conflict libblas3gf

- The shlibs information would have to be updated accordingly:
   * liblapack-atlas3gf (>= a.b) | liblapack3gf (>= x.y)
   * libblas-atlas3gf (>= a.b) | libblas3gf (>= x.y)

- Pros:
   * Reduced complexity
   * No more update-alternatives (i.e. symlink hell)
   * No more manual selection of optimized library flavours required
   * No more redundant installation of two or more library packages
     providing the same ABI

Cons:
   * No more on-the-fly switching between flavours
   * Only one combination of atlas/blas/lapack library packages can be
     installed
   * Switching between library flavours means installing one package
     and removing the other

What do you think about it?

Cheers,
Fabian






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