[petsc-dev] PETSc server

[Satish Balay]

[this multipart mesaage has a funny format and confusing my mailer - so replying thus..]

On Sat, 27 Apr 2013, Barry Smith wrote:

> 
>    Satish,
> 
>     Since installing PETSc is so difficult how hard would it be 

Its usually difficult for user specific settings - and VM/server doesn't adress this primary issue.

> 
> 1) provide an entire linux image with PETSc installed and user account already there that people can run in a VM on their machine?

A simple install on windows can be done via cygwin [with gcc/gfortran
etc.]. A VM will tradeoff installing cygwin with a
installing/managing/VM+linux

The last I checked - a linux VM install with all the required
developer tools [and a useable minimal X-desktop] takes 2G or more.

[I don't think its a big deal for us to host such a big download - but
users would have to deal with the VM issues. Usually these a
compressed with .xz to minimize footprint]

> 
> 2) allow people to log into a VM on a server with PETSc already installed and user account created for them automatically either
>    
>    a) on some machines we maintain or 
>    b) on some Amazon/..../...   server system?

We would be in account-management game instead here. Jed was
previously proposing having the above image available on amazon - and
users would just run instances of it the way they need it..

Satish