[petsc-dev] confusing download instructions

[Barry Smith]

   Satish,

    What about Windows issues with the git version? Doesn't sowing requiring gnu compilers which users who are using microsoft/intel compilers for PETSc won't have and hence cannot make fortran stubs? Can we make sowing more portable and build able by windows compilers?

   Barry

On Jun 28, 2013, at 12:58 PM, Jed Brown <jedbrown at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:

> 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.