[petsc-dev] confusing download instructions

[Jed Brown]

Barry Smith <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> writes:

>     We should say
>
> PETSc Release Version 3.4
>
> 	• Prefered method: git clone -b maint https://bitbucket.org/petsc/petsc petsc (updates may be obtained via git pull && make)
> 	• petsc-3.4.1.tar.gz - full distribution (including most current patches) with documentation
> 	• petsc-lite-3.4.1.tar.gz - smaller version with no documentation (all documentation may be accessed on line)
> 	
> That is, by default we want people to get PETSc releases via git. 

Fine with me.

> One big issues is documentation? Is it possible to build on all
> systems and how long does it take? Sometimes hours! 

Longer-term, we should make this faster and more portable.  In the past,
we've talked about doing it with Python, which I think is a good idea,
but changing languages is not the reason for the speed problem.  Do you
know why sowing is so slow?  (I haven't profiled, but some things take
forever.)

> So people who use git don't get documentation unless they do an extra
> command, is that ok? Could we have the docs in another tar ball that
> the user just brings in "on top of" the git repository (maybe even a
> make command to get the tar ball and untar in the right place?)

That sounds reasonable.
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