On Wed, 26 Sep 2007, Daniel McInerney wrote:
> Hi Agus,
>
>> Sorry if this is too off-topic for this list.
>
> You might get more feedback about specifics
> of software on various linux distributions
> from the Freegis mailing list [1], as this
> list deals specifically with issues relating to
> GRASS-GIS interfaces to stats software, in particular
R.
>
>> I'm thinking on a new machine
>> and wonder if gentoo linux would make
>> difference for running R, grass, qgis...
>> Anyone out there has any experience with or has
>> information on this distribution
>> in which all packages have to be compiled?
>
> To briefly answer your query, I would make the
following observations:
>
> If your work entails monitoring system performance and
how OS tuning will
> influence processing speeds you might find that you
have more control over a
> system that is entirely installed from source, such as
Gentoo. However, if
> the objective is to do statistical analysis of spatial
data using FOSS, a
> distribution shouldn't make any difference - you should
expect (& hope) to
> reproduce the same results on all operating systems.
I think this sums things up well. As far as speed is
concerned, you can
make R go faster by using a tuned BLAS, because most of the
heavier
numerical code in R base will benefit from the tuning. For
contributed
packages, mileage will vary, if they use the same BLAS as R
base, they
will benefit too. So the differences are not at the
distribution level
really, given the same hardware, OS kernel, and compile
train.
>
> My own personal experience is with Debian. All of the
packages that
> you identify are available through APT and many more.
You can also install
> all of them from source if required. I'm not advocating
one distribution over
> the other, the choice is down to your needs, preference
and experience.
>
I feel that compiling as many of the key software components
as you feel
necessary does help, because the build environment is (more
or less) the
same. The more components one depends on, the more likely it
is that some
should be compiled from source, say to keep all the bits
using the same
GDAL, rather than depending on different versions. The real
benefit of
access to source code is however being able to read it when
necessary, to
see what is going on.
Roger
> I hope that this is of use to you in deciding on your
distribution.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Daniel.
>
>
> [1] ht
tp://news.gmane.org/group/gmane.comp.gis.freegis
>
>
> -----------
> Daniel McInerney
> School of Biology & Env. Science,
> University College Dublin,
> Belfield, Dublin 4.
> Ireland
>
> daniel.mcinerney  ucd.ie
> ++ 353 1 716 7787 / 2698
>
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>
--
Roger Bivand
Economic Geography Section, Department of Economics,
Norwegian School of
Economics and Business Administration, Helleveien 30, N-5045
Bergen,
Norway. voice: +47 55 95 93 55; fax +47 55 95 95 43
e-mail: Roger.Bivandnhh.no
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