[GAP Forum] Using package genss on Debian

[Alexander Konovalov]

Dear Nicolas, dear GAP Forum,

Quite often we are being asked how to get some GAP packages ('package' in the GAP sense) working under the Debian GAP package ('package' in the Debian sense) by users who installed it using apt-get or other package managers in some Linux distributions. 

Our answer is that we do not support the Debian package for GAP, mainly because the directory structure that Debian conventions impose does not work well with GAP, and in particular with some GAP packages. Note that some packages extend the functionality and/or performance of the system quite substantially, but you will not be able to get them just by installing the Debian GAP package. For this reason, we suggest downloading GAP and all released packages from the GAP website and installing them yourself in a single location (for example, in /opt/gap4r4 or in ~/gap4r4) following the instructions provided athttp://www.gap-system.org/Download/UNIXInst.html

Another alternative is a Linux binary distribution offered by Frank Lübeck via remote syncronization with a reference GAP installation which includes *all* packages and some optimisations for installing GAP 4.4 on Linux PCs with i686 or x86_64 compatible processors:

	http://www.math.rwth-aachen.de:8001/RsyncLinuxGAP

However, we admit that some users may not have such choice (e.g. on a computer in a university lab where GAP may have been installed using the Debian package by a system administrator, and where students have such a low personal quota that full GAP installation is not an option). In this case, some packages may still work if they will be installed in the ~/gap/pkg directory. However, this is guaranteed to work only for packages that do not have external binaries or GAP kernel modules. For most packages with external binaries, the default assumption of the location of GAP is ../.., so you will have to direct them to /usr/share/gap at the build stage (see package manual for build instructions). But most unfortunately, the Debian GAP package is broken for some important packages with GAP kernel modules, like, for example, IO, Edim, Browse, orb (so since genss requires orb, this is not a way to go to install genss) because the Debian policy requires headers to be located in /usr/include/gap, while not all GAP codebase in the Debian GAP package has been adjusted to this change.

Finally, please note that GAP Support is a proper contact point for any installation-specific and other technical questions for any GAP distribution. If you have used one of the alternatives, please specify, if known, which distribution was used - this will help us to provide more efficient advice.

Best wishes,
Alexander Konovalov,
with inputs from GAP Support members.



On 2 Jan 2012, at 04:02, Nicolas FRANCOIS wrote:

> Hi.
> 
> I'd like to use the generic Schreier-Sims package (genss) on my Debian
> computer. But LoadPackage("genss"); fails.
> 
> I tried to install genss and orb packages manually (they don't seem to
> be included in the Debian archives), in /usr/share/gap/pkg/, but the
> problem remains.
> 
> Can you help me ?
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> \bye
> 
> -- 
> 
> Nicolas FRANCOIS                      |  /\ 
> http://nicolas.francois.free.fr       | |__|
> 				      X--/\\
> We are the Micro$oft.		        _\_V
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> 
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