Re: gEDA-user: Simulation troubles ...

[al davis <ad151@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Monday 05 November 2007 05:28, Richard Rasker wrote:
> Gwave is available as a Mandriva package, but it needs
> libguile-ltdl.so.1, which unfortunately is not included in the
> installed guile package:
>
> # urpmi gwave
> Some requested packages could not be installed:
> gwave-0.20051222-1mdv2007.0.i586 (due to missing libguile-ltdl.so.1)

That looks like a Mandriva problem.  The package managers are supposed 
to take care of this kind of problem.  You should file a bug report 
there.

> The guile-1.6.7 RPM package (built for SuSE) does offer
> libguile-ltdl.so, but won't install; not only does the package
> manager say everything is installed already, but it also shows lots
> of conflicting files:

I would not expect the SuSE package to work.  Those packages are built 
for a particular distribution.  Crossing over sometimes works, 
sometimes doesn't.  The universal package is the original source 
package.  Even there, the original creator cannot test on all systems, 
but will usually help on other systems.

One problem with gwave is that it has not been actively maintained.  We 
had a SOC proposal to make a replacement for it, but it didn't get 
funded.

> # rpm -if guile-1.6.7-3.i586.rpm
> package guile-1.8.1-7mdv2007.1 (which is newer than guile-1.6.7-3) is
> already installed file /usr/bin/guile from install of guile-1.6.7-3
> conflicts with file from package guile-1.8.1-7mdv2007.1 ...
> [snip huge list of conflicting files]

This tells me again that it is a Mandriva problem.  It also tells me 
that the problem is probably in the guile-1.6 package.  You should file 
a bug report with Mandriva.
>
> Uninstalling guile-1.8 is no option, as several other packages I use
> depend on it.

This tells me again that it is a Mandriva problem.  Guile-1.6 and 1.8 
should be able to co-exist on the same system.  They do, easily, on 
Debian.

> I haven't tried installing guile-1.6.7 from source yet, but my
> experience tells me that I'll most likely run into more trouble that
> way.

Probably true.


> It's a bit frustrating ... all of gEDA installed without a hitch,
> except the simulation software -- and even after several days of
> trying and tinkering, I haven't succeeded in performing even one
> simple simulation, no matter whether I tried gspiceui, gwave or
> KJWaves ... Somehow it seems Mandriva won't let me simulate circuits
> :-/

You didn't mention gnucap, so I assume it installed fine, and it is 
the "glue" packages that are giving you trouble.

From what I see on the web, the Mandriva gnucap package is rather old, 
and a development snapshot.  That particular snapshot is a 0.35 release 
candidate, so it should be close enough to not give you trouble, but it 
is worthy of note that it too is in need of maintenance.

We do have a problem with the glue associated with simulation.  Our 
simulation itself is quite strong, but it doesn't look that way because 
of the glue problems.  There were several Google-SOC proposals to do 
something about it, but none of them were funded.  There have also been 
other proposals to do something about it, but none resulted in any 
action.

We do need a serious viewer for analog simulation data.  The best we 
have is gwave, which has compiling issues, and it still does only 
waves.  "gtkwave" does not do analog in a reasonable way, or handle any 
file format used by any analog simulator.

We also need to work on translation issues.  Only a small subset of what 
can be on a schematic is properly translated.  On another side, we have 
everything in place to do signal integrity simulations of layouts, 
except the translator.

Gnucap needs a decent tutorial.  In the last year, I put it off to 
concentrate on plugin code instead, which could totally change it.  Now 
that the plugin system is mostly working, I expect to do a real 
tutorial to be part of the next stable release.

So, this is a plea for help in two areas ...

1. Help with the simulation glue.

2. The Mandriva packages.

Any takers?


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