gnuplot 4.2 on ubuntu: right now!

Just a few days ago the new version of gnuplot was released. As you can read from the announce, it has been almost 3 years since release of the previous version 4.0. This new version contains a ton of new features, support for several new output devices, and improved performance. But I don't know how much I'm supposed to wait before the ubuntu guys will include this brand new version into its official repositories. Moreover, if you google for a debian package, you will find no more than the 4.0.0-5 version. So I moved to install gnuplot from sources.

...continua

   —   ∴   —   

So I took my tar-ball and unzipped it into a temporary directory:

[hronir@boltzmann:~/gnuplot-src] tar -xzvf gnuplot-4.2.0.tar.gz
[hronir@boltzmann:~/gnuplot-src] cd gnuplot-4.2.0
[hronir@boltzmann:~/gnuplot-src/gnuplot-4.2.0]

To be careful, I decided not to replace the previous instance of gnuplot, so I asked ./configure to take a home-based directory as the --prefix option:

[hronir@boltzmann:~/gnuplot-src/gnuplot-4.2.0] ./configure --prefix=$HOME/gnuplot4.2
[hronir@boltzmann:~/gnuplot-src/gnuplot-4.2.0] make
[hronir@boltzmann:~/gnuplot-src/gnuplot-4.2.0] make install

My first attempt failed just in the last step: it was saying something ending with:

/home/hronir/gnuplot-src/gnuplot-4.2.0/missing: 103: makeinfo: not found
WARNING: `makeinfo' is missing on your system.  You should only need it if
         you modified a `.texi' or `.texinfo' file, or any other file
         indirectly affecting the aspect of the manual.  The spurious
         call might also be the consequence of using a buggy `make' (AIX,
         DU, IRIX).  You might want to install the `Texinfo' package or
         the `GNU make' package.  Grab either from any GNU archive site.
make[1]: *** [gnuplot.info] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/hronir/gnuplot-src/gnuplot-4.2.0/docs'
make: *** [install-recursive] Error 1

But it really was a very small hurdle to overcome. As the warning was suggesting, I simply took the Texinfo package from my Adept Manager and at the second attempt with ./configure, make, make install I get my new-gnuplot [›››](by the way: do you know the origin of the name gnuplot?)[‹‹‹] (the only comment is that it was not only a warning, since without the Texinfo package it would not complete the installation...)

Last thing: making the new-gnuplot the default gnuplot. First check which gnuplot is your gnuplot:

[hronir@boltzmann:~] which gnuplot

and bind it to some alias of your choice, for example:

[hronir@boltzmann:~] alias gnuplot-old=`which gnuplot` 

Then bind a gnuplot alias to the new-gnuplot, which lies in the bin directory:

[hronir@boltzmann:~] alias gnuplot='$HOME/gnuplot4.2/bin/gnuplot'

and all done!

 

PS

As a matter of fact, the gnuplot-old alias is not needed. When you have an alias which overloads a pre-existing command, you can always recover the original command by pre-posing a backslash to the command itself. In this case, for example, you have:

[hronir@boltzmann:~] gnuplot --version
gnuplot 4.2 patchlevel 0
[hronir@boltzmann:~] \gnuplot --version
gnuplot 4.0 patchlevel 0

and the gnuplot-old alias is pretty useless.

Mark Shuttleworth at CERN

He, no matter what the picture on the left will let you think, is of course the founder of the Ubuntu project. And he was just here, today, for a conference about Open Source Software: The Challenge Ahead. I moved to the conference only to see him, because I had no idea of what could be the appearance of the man at the source of my OS-passion.

There I found a guy − yes, he is only 4 years older than me! − just like the one in the photo down-right here, dressing blue jeans and exactly that black sweatshirt. And I come to know that he

• started as a Debian developer (ok, this was obvious)
• founded a company, Thawte, specialized in digital certificates and than he sold it to Verisign for more than half a billion bucks.
• formed the Shuttleworth Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to social innovation which also funds educational and open source projects in South Africa, such as The Freedom Toaster.
• spent eight days aboard the International Space Station as a civilian cosmonaut, participating in experiments related to AIDS and genome research (yes, the one in the picture on the top-left is just him).
• started the development of Ubuntu and then founded the Ubuntu Foundation

And today he was here, just a few meters apart from me, speaking about something as common in my life as the open source software.

 

PS

Concerning the K in front of my OS-passion, on 15 October 2006 it was announced that Mark Shuttleworth became the first patron of KDE, the highest level of sponsorship available.

I’m Myself, Thanks :)

(k)ubuntu vs Vista

Sono così contento della (k)ubuntu che ormai mi scopro a pensare tutto in girotondi ternari. I motivi che mi hanno spinto al grande passo [›››](prima o poi scrivero' un post su di essi...)[‹‹‹] mi sembrano cosi' oggettivi e condivisibili [›››](ogni tanto mi capita addirittura di sognare di installare, come ha fatto edo, la kubuntu sul computer dei miei...!)[‹‹‹] che ormai mi ero autoconvinto anch'io, come crede Alessandro Bottoni, che con l'arrivo di Windows Vista si sarebbe manifestato in piena luce la grande crepa nell'egemonia di Microsoft nei sistemi operativi. Qualche segnale lo si puo' gia' leggere in questo senso; e comunque, per tornare a (k)ubuntu, Microsoft e' sottoposta al fuoco incrociato anche − e soprattutto − di Apple, oltre che di Linux. In ogni caso ci sono statistiche che promettono le solite faville e anche piu'.

Ma e' stato July a mostrarmi l'irragionevolezza di questa speranza con una semplice considerazione: quando Vista sara' pronto, i nuovi computer che saranno venduti se la porteranno in dote automaticamente. E' difficile pensare che si possa andare dal negoziante e chiedergli di avere XP invece di Vista [›››](del resto Microsoft ritirera' pian piano XP, o interrompendone direttamente la vendita, o riducendo l'assistenza e/o gli aggiornamenti...)[‹‹‹], e ancora piu' improbabile e' la circostanza che quel Vista venga lasciato su una partizione ridotta per far posto a una qualche piu' user-friendly distribuzione di Linux.

L'argomento di July non ammette replica, ma continuo a non essere convinto che tutto si ripetera' uguale, e resto dunque in curiosa attesa di quel che succedera' dalla fine di questo mese...