Re: NCL 4.2.0.a033 for Cygwin/X?

From: Constantine Nenkov <nenkov_at_nyahnyahspammersnyahnyah>
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 15:11:44 -0500

Hi Mary, Alex and all others,

Let me share my experience with Cygwin/X and you can decide for
yourself. I am running Cygwin on top of
Windows XP for almost two years now. I am quite content with it
because it gives me the best of both worlds :
all the goodies from Windows MS, and an Unix like feel and touch. Of
course security in Cygwin is not great but
who cares when it is a single user anyway. I am running Cygwin on
fairly good 32-bit computer: Pentium 4/3.2 GHz
with 2Gby of RAM. I develop my own "monster" global convective
anelastic code in spherical geometry right on my
desktop within Cygwin. I develop, test and run the code in this
environment, and from there I port it (almost without
any trouble) to any big machine. I also installed in Cygwin a lot of
standard packages like NCL and NCAR-Graphics etc.,
and I am perfectly satisfied with them and their performance. The
trick is that I never install ready-made binaries for
Cygwin because you can not optimize anything since the binaries are
cast in stone. Instead, I always start from source code
and work on the maze of Make and include files. It is true that at
first try it is a steep learning curve, but once you get the
hang of it any subsequent software you might want to install fits in
easily. Besides it's an excellent software management
exercise and even you may become certified for finding "bugs" in the
installation routines.

The bottom line is that I find Cygwin to be extremely useful
development tool for me and I am quite happy with it.

So my personal advice is: Start with the source code and the force
will be with you!

Good luck. :-)

Constantine

At 01:52 PM 3/29/2006, Mary Haley wrote:

>On Wed, 29 Mar 2006, Alex Gardner wrote:
>
>>Is the new version of NCL (4.2.0.a033) going to be released for Cygwin/X? If
>>so When?
>
>Hi Alex,
>
>The Cygwin version has been giving me grief, but unfortunately I
>haven't had a lot of time to donate to working on it. The problem is
>my computer is old and when I last upgraded Cygwin/X on it, it blew
>up. I've been trying to get it reinstalled without much luck.
>I will keep working on it as I've made some breakthroughs.
>
>To be brutally honest, I don't recommend that people run NCL under
>Cygwin because it's just not pretty (can be slow and unpredictable).
>I know this isn't a good answer, however, because there are a lot of
>Windows users out there. However, if it ever comes time to buy a new
>machine, I would reconsider the choice of a PC running Windows, and
>instead recommend a Mac running MacOSX or a PC running Linux. :-)
>
>I'll keep this group posted as I know there are a lot of people
>anxiously waiting for this version. Everybody's patience and
>understanding is appreciated!
>
>--Mary
>
>
>>
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Alex Gardner
>>
>>University of Alberta
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>_______________________________________________
>ncl-talk mailing list
>ncl-talk_at_ucar.edu
>http://mailman.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/ncl-talk
>
>
>
>
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Constantine Nenkov
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Received on Wed Mar 29 2006 - 13:11:44 MST

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