Sat, 21 Aug 2004

Updated Ggobi and Rggobi packages

Ggobi, a neat data visualization tool, is a bit of a Debian step child due to its almost-but-not-quite-FLOSS AT&T license. Our autobuilders don't touch it as it is flagged non-free, even though AT&T did try to to make it as free as they thought they could. Interestingly, Graphviz has the same problem yet many more packages, including some core ones like apt don't mind interfacing that non-free API.

Anyway, the Rggobi interface package for calling Ggobi from GNU R had a fails to build from source bug which only came up now when the amd64 crowd tried to build it (as this dependent package is a semi-step child in contrib). Since the last package release, I had tried to upgrade to the newer Ggobi 1.0.0-beta, but failed to build either the currently package Rggobi or the newer 1.0.0 of Rggobi against it -- so the old version will have to be it for a while. A friend has a saying for the peticular nature of these build problems: BOINJ, and I guess we need to make that BOICA now. And now, I won't reveal the joke via the blog.

/computers/linux/debian/packages | permanent link

Back from vacation

We were gone to a small town on Lake Huron for a week and two weekends, and returned last Sunday. Vacation was great: finally finished a novel I had been stuck in for way too long, read another, ate a lot, drank like a fish, run some 60 miles in seven days, hang out on the beach with the kids, and stayed clear of computers and all things online for a week. Felt good, actually.

Since then I spent last week catching up on a mountain of email, fixing a few bugs and upgrading a few packages, and doing a few little things like getting the bike back from its annual inspection. No real programming work yet other than adding a few items to the Quantian TODO list; not sure when the next release will be. Beancounter needs an update too, hopefully soon.

/misc | permanent link