Greetings Prof. Stein,
OK I don't even need to look to know that Sage on Cygwin is never going to work
(I hate Cygwin, that hermaphroditic monster!) - but tell me now, is Sage on MinGW an impossibility as well?
Are the problems intrinsic or Python-related? Thanks in advance!
-drl
----------------------------------------------
"I write a little. I erase a lot." - Chopin
> What do you think - is it an option to offer such > users with little
> technical sophistication < a tool like the combined
> Virtual Box / Sage installer?
> Download: http://boxen.math.washington.edu/home/emil/Win-Inst/Sage-Win-Installer.exe
> with some screenshots http://boxen.math.washington.edu/home/emil/doc/html/en/Windows_Installer.html
>
> I must say I am a bit puzzled - I thought that would be really a smart
> way to present sage to the windows folks but I am mistaken,
> interest seems to converge to zero ...
Here's the last email I got from a Windows user wanting to use Sage:
"William: I just wasted half an hour trying to figure out how to
download Sage. I give up. [...] Obviously everyone in your group knows
many programs I never heard of and how to use them to download. I went
around in circles, trying to follow links and directions starting at
the SAGE website. I don't know what Virtual Box is or how to use it. I
don't know what P2P is or how to use it. I do know I have Windows 7
and 64 bit operating system. That didn't help me figure out how to
interpret what to do. I'm just letting you know about this. I have to
bring my computer home now. So I won't be able to download anything
before the class, since I can't do it now. Maybe I'm the only person
in the class who wasn't born knowing all this. I don't know how to get
info about Windows 7 because our IT department just switched all
in-class systems and our laptops to it without training us. (I also
know some non-helpful IT person turned off my wireless connection
setting for internet connection and I have no clue how to turn it back
on. So I won't be able to connect to the online version of SAGE in the
class, either.) Same with everything else--no help and no training. I
can use Maple and Matlab, but it looks pretty hopeless to figure out
how to download Sage without making a mess of my office laptop. So I'm
giving up."
That's pretty bad. Even http://sagenb.org offers them no solace.
-- William
<snip>
> I don't know what Virtual Box is or how to use it. I
> don't know what P2P is or how to use it.
has he or she never herd of Google?
> I don't know how to get
> info about Windows 7 because our IT department just switched all
> in-class systems and our laptops to it without training us. (I also
> know some non-helpful IT person turned off my wireless connection
> setting for internet connection and I have no clue how to turn it back
> on. So I won't be able to connect to the online version of SAGE in the
> class, either.) Same with everything else--no help and no training. I
> can use Maple and Matlab, but it looks pretty hopeless to figure out
> how to download Sage without making a mess of my office laptop. So I'm
> giving up."
>
> That's pretty bad. Even http://sagenb.org offers them no solace.
>
> -- William
Whatever the issues may be with a Windows version of Sage (and of
course I'm aware there are issues), I get the feeling this individual
is not really putting the effort in to get Sage. He/she could easily
Google VirtualBox. I'm not sure where the P2P comes in, but if he/she
does not know what that is, then again its pretty simple to find out.
In my local amateur radio club there are several people in their 70's
who have used VirtualBox. They were not bought up on computers like
students are today, but they figure it out. A guy in my village, who
will be 80 this year, uses Linux. He was born before the first
transistor was produced, let alone an integrated circuit. If a young
person doing a degree can't figure these things out, I can't help feel
they are not really trying.
I see it as advantagous to make installing Sage as easy as possible,
but there is only so much one should reasonably do. I think you once
said there was an 8-year old who was contemplating contributing to
Sage developement. If an 8-year old has managed to do something useful
with Sage, I'm sure a college student should be able to work out how
to install a VirtualBox image.
The more time you devote to making the installation easier, the less
time you have to devote to do something else.
Dave
On Dec 30, 2011 7:29 AM, "RegB" <2regb...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> I would characterize such users as "differently technically
> sophisticated" (-:
>
> By simple analogy, they don't REALLY want to drive a car, they just
> want/need
> to get somewhere - they care even less about the design and
> manufacture of cars,
> about the history/evolution of the automobile, etc.
> Railroads as an alternative... oh, never mind.
>
> I don't think of it as laziness, apathy, ignorance etc., they just
> "wanna get to the MATH part"
> they may have NO interest in Virtual machines, Linux, etc., they are
> Windoze users (.) Period
> Is that SO unreasonable ?
It is not unreasonable. We should try harder to make Sage easy for them.
> --
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>
I'd agree the documentation could be a bit clearer.
But is it unreasonable for someone who wants to use a complex bit of
software to spend time to evualte it?
I recently wanted to evaluate HFSS
http://www.ansoft.com/products/hf/hfss/
which is expensive and makes Mathematica's cost seem like a cheap kids game.
The process was like this:
1) Contact the vendor
2) Speak on the phone about getting an evaluation license. This was a
fairlly lengthly phone call.
3) Get sent a form by email, which I must sign and FAX. In that I must
agree to devote sufficient time to evaluate the software over a 14 day
trial period.
4) Get a link to download the software.
5) Send the MAC address and the host name to the vendor.
6) Install the software
7) Install the license
8) Install the license manager softare (the horid FlexLM)
9) Print off some of the documentation - unlike Sage, there are no
books written about HFSS.
10) Have a tutorial from an engineer. That lasted about 1.5 hours.
11) Exchange several emails with support engineer, exchanging files
for my model.
12) Asked, and was granted a free one-day course on HFSS (normally
several hundred pounds).
13) Will probably get the trial extended, as 14 days was not
sufficient to evaluate this expensive, complex software.
I must have put in 50 hours over a 2-week period of this software.
Had I given up after half an hour, like the person who tried to
install Sage, I'd be stuck at step #2.
Dave
Have you looked at the html notebook provided with ipython 0.12? It
sounds like it might be a perfect fit for you, and it does run on windows.
I'm not saying that we can't or shouldn't do what you suggest, but you
might look at that as a possible solution for you.
Thanks,
Jason
Silvio.
I've run the notebook under Windows not using cygwin before...
> sagenb does not depend on Sage (well, it might use few python decorators from there, but they can easily isolateled); it depends on several python packages that run on Windows (twisted and flack), and some javascript things.
> Help system uses ipython, as far as I know, which also runs on Windows...
That is a common misconception - I don't think the notebook uses ipython in any way, except as inspiration.
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>> Silvio.
>>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-windows" group.
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Why do you think that sagenb site is not "private"? (OK, so somebody
could hack into, but it doesn't sound like you're talking about top
secret data here.)
> So I compared my Sage experience with
> using GeoGebra. GeoGebra lets pupils use some mathematical
> functionality for free and privately whether online, or locally for
> personal use. And it installs easily and quickly. If pupils had
> licences, I'm guessing they could install and use Mathematica fairly
> straightforwardly too. Can you imagine what would be involved in
> pupils installing their own Windows copies of Sage?
>
> 4) While one of my interests was single-user Sage, I expected to
> have to put more effort into installing a facility that multiple users
> could use. But how much more? Not the weeks I'd spent. After all, I
> had multi-user Alfresco running inside an evening and that's not
> trivial software either.
>
> I am in awe of the effort that Sage developers put into projects like
> this and I think it's extraordinary when people can obtain and use
> such a thing for free. But the most important word in that sentence is
> "use". If I don't get to use it, then I get no value from it - whether
> it's free or not. Neither do the other folk who I'd hoped would use
> the multi-user facility that I'd hoped to provide.
In the near future (almost now), someone like you should no more have
to install Sage to use it than you would have to install your own
Google Docs server to use Google docs.
-- William
I run this on my work machine, and the only hassle I have is that there's a piece of local-server technology already running on port 8000. To fix this problem, all I need to do is change the port forwarding so 8000 is mapped to 8080, and this is the biggest problem I've had with the new image.
Joal Heagney
On Jan 29, 2012 3:26 PM, "RegB" <2regb...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
> As a "regular Joe" I would like to add some hope to this.
> We (regular and below average Joe and Jane s) are becoming more familiar with virtual
> machines for other reasons.
> One reason of course is that Oracle bought Sun, where VirtualBox originated (I am fairly sure of this).
> On Oracle's technet there are a number of virtual machine images containing lab exercises for their
> courses and developer days. These are very simple to download and import into VirtualBox.
>
> I am reading into this that Oracle is USING what it (previously Sun) makes and generally that is good.
> If Sage were to follow the style that Oracle is setting it MIGHT lead to easier acceptance.
> If sage just publicizes more that it is using the same platform as Oracle - it would help.
>
> OK, OK, so how much (how LITTLE) commonality of interest and career path there is between
> database dudes and math types is open to speculation, I'm just suggesting that Oracle seems
> to be setting a direction here - & BTW, they are LARGE and have influence on IT/IS trends.
>
Cool. I definitely wantto reiterate that I think pushing the VM option as hard as we can is the best strategy for supporting MS Windows.
Volker - how hard woud it be to generate a 64-bit vm as well?
William
> My first experience with virtual machines was at dec with Virtual VMS, but that was in the late 80s,
> same/similar concepts, but I digress even more.
>
>
>
> -- the
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-windows" group.
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(snip...)
> I am in awe of the effort that Sage developers put into projects like
> this and I think it's extraordinary when people can obtain and use
> such a thing for free. But the most important word in that sentence is
> "use". If I don't get to use it, then I get no value from it - whether
> it's free or not. Neither do the other folk who I'd hoped would use>
> the multi-user facility that I'd hoped to provide.
>
> So, my ideal is an installation process that is no more complex for
> the installer than common Windows installations and one which is no
> more fragile. I've no idea whether this is possible and I completely
> appreciate that developers may have other priorities. But I think it's
> what's needed if you want to succeed with Windows users of which,
> whatever we all think of Windows, there are very, very many.
>
> Hoping the feedback is helpful.
>
> Kevin
Amen! I am astounded at the amount of time and effort Sage represents, and truely thank the community in toto. Likewise, the resource at http://boxen.math.washington.edu/home/emil/sagelive/ is singularly astounding in its usefulness by non-*nix users.
I briefly used Sage as a grad student, and have since taken a (staff) position with the Comp Sci dept. I now am responsible for supporting Sage in our labs - the same labs I was using just last year! For what it's worth, I agree with the general position that guiding windows users to select the Live CD
makes a great deal of sense. Virtual machines are useful, and certainly have their place. Just as certainly, there are no 'blanket answers' that will be the best fit for every circumstance.
The then-current version I ran as a student have a fairly straight-forward ability to do a local Pup\Sage install from the Live CD. Indeed, the Sage live *.exe (based on 511-47) at the site above has this functionality [From the ReadMe: 'Use the wizards in the Menu / Setup (Puppy Universal Installer)"]. it really seemed to be an elegant way to bring Sage to us mere windoze types. The process allowed testing Pup + Sage on the end-user's hardware platform directly. If the user liked it, they could install it with a minimum of fussing with techy, non-windoze stuff. It put Pup on it's own little partition, stuck sage on it, and Bob's you uncle. If the user didn't like it, reboot and they're back in the familiar windoze world, safe from all thing *nix.
This completely side-steps the need for porting, recompiling, fixing, or dragging Sage into the non-native M$ world, yet allows the M$ captives a glimpse at Linux-promised freedom. Further, it eliminates any performance hit from any type of full OS + v-box, and lets Pup's performance shine through on nearly any platform.
Am I missing something, or has that been omitted from 511-53? If it's there and I am not seeing it due to user error, I certainly apologize and hope not too many of you will point and laugh. However, I surely cannot find anything that offers to install Pup - frugal, full, or otherwise.
As a stop-gap, I can use the sagelive.exe from above to create local installations, but believe newcomers to Sage that are unaware of the (seemingly) ommitted functionality may not know that this route is a possibility: and this may negatively affect their impression/evaluation of Sage.
I hope I'm not coming across as whining, but rather as offering positive suggestions based on personal experience.