Clarify how/where to install optional packages

[kcrisman]

This is currently a ridiculous situation. Some packages are only available in 'old-style', but 'new-style' ones aren't installable (as far as I can tell) with a single command sage -do_this. The install guide still uses the sage -i syntax (which makes a lot of sense to me) and there is no place the new procedure is documented, not really even in the developer guide, though people shouldn't have to look at that to (say) install the small groups package. (And it wouldn't hurt to add some FAQ somewhere, or a nice test in a very visible place for groups, about that, as it keeps getting asked.)

Component: documentation

Reviewer: Jeroen Demeyer

Issue created by migration from https://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/16628

[jdemeyer]

comment:2

I don't understand the problem here, can you please clarify? Both old and new packages can be installed using

./sage -i package_name

[jdemeyer]

comment:3

There is an issue with optional packages, namely that http://www.sagemath.org/packages/optional/ only lists the old packages, but that doesn't seem to be what this ticket is about...

[kcrisman]

comment:4

Well, at any rate I have personally had trouble installing new-style optional spkgs with sage -i when there is an older version still up on the old packages list. I cannot now remember precisely which ones. I've always ended up having to put stuff in upstream/ first.

[jdemeyer]

comment:5

In general, ./sage -i package should work both for old and new packages. It could of course be that there is a problem with a specific package or that somewhere, there is bad documentation for a specific package. Therefore, this ticket should either be made more concrete or closed as "invalid".

[kcrisman]

comment:6

I'm sorry I don't have more specific info today. I hope I won't have to open another ticket like this, but I guess you can close it.

[jdemeyer]

Reviewer: Jeroen Demeyer