Binary versions

[gforney]

I am an active tester of the new versions of FDS and SMV.

I found a bug (shared instead of static library in SMV) that you corrected
immediately. But I have to wait for RC3 to continue my test.

I think that you could ease the testers' work in one of this two ways:
1) (preferred) please publish an automatic nightly-build version of the
software, as other projects do.
2) please set up a page where you explain how to predictably and uniformly
compile the source. If possible, using open source tools... (I work on Linux).

As always, I thank you in advance.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by emanuele.gissi on 2007-05-02 14:57:44

[gforney]

Thank you for the feedback...

Now that we have moved from Sourceforge to Google Code, an automated build process
became much easier.  For official release, we hope to have an automated build system
that we will use for both official and maintenance releases.  The only part that is
not as easy to automate is the building of the windows installer.  But we should be
able to get that in line as well.

We will stick with the Release Candidate process instead of nightly builds, here is
why.  Nightly builds may not be stable, as there are multiple developers changing
source at the same time daily.  We impose a self-regulated rule internally that the
code should compile before the changes are committed to the repository, but even if
it builds the application still might be broken.  So what we do before a Release
Candidate is not only make sure it builds, but we run the verification suite to make
sure things are still working.

Now that we have moved to SVN, my hope is that interested people like yourself, would
access the source repository directly, sync your local working copy and build
whenever you feel like it.  There is a new web page that will cover how to do this,
but in the meantime, check out the following link for more information on connecting
to the repository. http://code.google.com/p/fds-smv/source


Regarding the compiler instruction page, this is also happening, but it is not at the
top of the to-do list yet.  Right now, there is a single make file available with
flags for various compilers commented within.  It is something like a makefile
template that you edit for your specific compiler.
You can see the makefile here:
http://fds-smv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/FDS/trunk/Makefiles/Makefile_FDS_5

In combination with this, I am putting together a compiler resources page, that will
be an overview of various compilers and how to use them with FDS and Smokeview
builds.  There is a little bit of information here:
http://groups.google.com/group/fds-smv/web/compiler-information

And soon there will be a page with more information on the main website.

Open Source Build Tools...
I will make sure that we have some open source options for compiling FDS.
Currently though, commercial compilers build significantly faster and more optimized
executables.  FDS will run when built with gfortran, gcc, g95, etc... but the
execution performance is not there yet.  But we will keep them on our list.

Thank you again for your feedback,
Bryan

Original issue reported on code.google.com by bryanwklein on 2007-05-02 15:50:44

• Labels added: Type-Enhancement, OpSys-All, Component-Docs, Component-Scripts, Maintainability, Performance
• Labels removed: Type-Defect

[gforney]

Thanks for your quick reply.
I am going to test RC3 this morning.
Emanuele.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by emanuele.gissi on 2007-05-03 06:52:06

[gforney]

"Open Source Build Tools...
I will make sure that we have some open source options for compiling FDS.
Currently though, commercial compilers build significantly faster and more optimized
executables.  FDS will run when built with gfortran, gcc, g95, etc... but the
execution performance is not there yet.  But we will keep them on our list."

gcc, g95 and so on offer the advantage, that one can optimize the program for his 
special hardware. I have no idea what advantage this may offer, but distros like 
Gentoo run recognizable faster. Also the next gcc will offer better optimized code.
I think the abillity to compile FDS and SMV on gcc is a great feature.

Boris

Original issue reported on code.google.com by Boris.Stock@GMX.de on 2007-05-09 08:39:22

[gforney]

RC4 is released now.
http://download.fds-smv.net

This Issue is now closed.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by bryanwklein on 2007-05-17 13:29:33

[gforney]

(No text was entered with this change)

Original issue reported on code.google.com by bryanwklein on 2007-06-26 17:38:58