Re: [fricas/fricas] 43e65c: Update release notes

[Ralf Hemmecke]

Dear Waldek,

I still need to put something into the .rst files that should go in
before the release.

A first draft is at my recent pull request.

https://github.com/fricas/fricas/pull/211

Which would show like this...
https://hemmecke.github.io/fricas/

Any comments so far. I stil have some corrections to install.rst waiting
I will commit them (probably tonight to my wip/docfix branch.

Ralf

[Waldek Hebisch]

I have a bunch of comment, but now just one:

AFAICS ImageMagick part is obsolete. I have no special policy
and in fact the package 'imagemack' is not installed (I have
libraries) and build works OK. IIRC that was re-worked few
releases ago.

--
Waldek Hebisch

[Ralf Hemmecke]

> AFAICS ImageMagick part is obsolete.

Oh, shame on me. Together with Qian, I myself am responsible for this
removal. How could I forget... :-(

Of course, I will remove that from the docs.
I am still not completely happy with install.rst, anyway.

Ralf

[Waldek Hebisch]

On Mon, Mar 02, 2026 at 07:23:40PM +0100, 'Ralf Hemmecke' via FriCAS - computer algebra system wrote:

More comments:

- When listing X libraries I deliberatly did not list 'xfonts-100dpi':
it is not a library and fonst are not needed for build.
- You changed list of needed LaTeX package, removing 'amssymb' and
'graphicx', but AFAICS they are referenced by documentation files.
On my machine 'graphicx' is in 'texlive-latex-base' and 'amssymb'
is in 'texlive-base'. You added 'mleftright' but AFAICS it is not
referenced directly by documentation files (may be needed as a
dependence of some other package).
- Concerning needed space, 0.8 GB is enough for build without Aldor
interface, Aldor indeed significantly increases it.
- I used 'fr-build' for a reason: there is less risk that a user
will think that it is a hardcoded name, it is not to long and
reasonably distinctive.
- I wrote 'crash hypertex' because this is name of the binary that
would crash (we have no 'HyperDoc' binary).
- In 'examples.rst' you link to some separate examples in the
wiki. Why do no just link to

http://wiki.fricas.org/FriCASLibraryExamples

--
Waldek Hebisch

[Ralf Hemmecke]

On 3/3/26 13:30, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
> - When listing X libraries I deliberatly did not list 'xfonts-100dpi':
> it is not a library and fonst are not needed for build.

OK, then I only mention it under "issues" when starting fricas.

> - You changed list of needed LaTeX package, removing 'amssymb' and
> 'graphicx', but AFAICS they are referenced by documentation files.
> On my machine 'graphicx' is in 'texlive-latex-base' and 'amssymb'
> is in 'texlive-base'. You added 'mleftright' but AFAICS it is not
> referenced directly by documentation files (may be needed as a
> dependence of some other package).

Thank you. I now faintly remember that at some point I wasn't satisfied
with mleftright and removed it.

> - Concerning needed space, 0.8 GB is enough for build without Aldor
> interface, Aldor indeed significantly increases it.

OK, but that does not include the book and the html-files.
Maybe we need to be a bit more specific and saying "FriCAS core without
documentation and without Aldor interface"

> - I used 'fr-build' for a reason: there is less risk that a user
> will think that it is a hardcoded name, it is not to long and
> reasonably distinctive.

Ah, this was the idea. I would have used an environment variable and
told the user that it can be anything. But, OK, let's have fr-build.

> - I wrote 'crash hypertex' because this is name of the binary that
> would crash (we have no 'HyperDoc' binary).

Well, that is probably my confusion. A user (including me) does not see
that the underlying program is called hypertex. So maybe we rather say
"crashes the hypertex process".
Actually, I don't know why I keep thinking that HyperTeX is the name of
a TeX-like **language** that allows hyperlinks, just like LaTeX is a
variant of TeX. I always thought along the analogy HyperTeX/HyperDoc
corresponds to HTML/WebBrowser.

> - In 'examples.rst' you link to some separate examples in the
> wiki. Why do no just link to
>
> http://wiki.fricas.org/FriCASLibraryExamples

That's a good idea. That allows updating the examples without changing
the website.

Update will come soon.

Ralf

[Waldek Hebisch]

On Tue, Mar 03, 2026 at 06:42:36PM +0100, 'Ralf Hemmecke' via FriCAS - computer algebra system wrote:
> On 3/3/26 13:30, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
>
> > - Concerning needed space, 0.8 GB is enough for build without Aldor
> > interface, Aldor indeed significantly increases it.
>
> OK, but that does not include the book and the html-files.
> Maybe we need to be a bit more specific and saying "FriCAS core without
> documentation and without Aldor interface"

OK, some more data on my machine:

default build 620296
default + book 656724
default + localdoc 1005024

> > - I wrote 'crash hypertex' because this is name of the binary that
> > would crash (we have no 'HyperDoc' binary).
>
> Well, that is probably my confusion. A user (including me) does not see that
> the underlying program is called hypertex. So maybe we rather say "crashes
> the hypertex process".
> Actually, I don't know why I keep thinking that HyperTeX is the name of a
> TeX-like **language** that allows hyperlinks, just like LaTeX is a variant
> of TeX. I always thought along the analogy HyperTeX/HyperDoc corresponds to
> HTML/WebBrowser.

Mutiple names may cause confusion. Concerning programs, code is
split between C part (hypertex binary), Boot part (soon large part
of this will be in Spad) running inside FriCASsys and a few helper
scripts. For me HyperDoc is an alternative name for the whole
system, including programs and pages. Another alternative is
HyperTeX. Taking about language I tend to say HyperTeX to
stress connection with TeX.

--
Waldek Hebisch

[Ralf Hemmecke]

On 3/3/26 19:32, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
> OK, some more data on my machine:
>
> default build 620296
> default + book 656724
> default + localdoc 1005024

On a Xubuntu 24.04 VM I got
make 668012 kB
make book 704124 kB
make localdoc 1261741 kB

I change it back to 0.8 GB.

Ralf