Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: doyen

[Alfredo Portes]

Alejandro,

> OK, some feedback:
>
> 1. I could not run properly doyen04262005 on my machine at home because it
> produced some ammount of cloop readerror messages. It run fine on an older
> machine at the office, though. Sadly, there is no md5 file to check the iso
> file. Anyway, I have found that this Knoppix version boots on that old PC much
> faster than the FC3 based doyen081306 on the faster machine. It takes over
> five minutes. Too much!

Something is wrong. Doyen does not take 5 minutes to load, not even in
a virtual machine. Can you give me the specs of the machine you are
testing please (memory - cpu - cdrom speed).

I think the doyen04262005 iso should be removed, updated or replace by the FC3.

> 2. I have played a little bit with the doyen wiki sandbox, executing a few
> Axiom and Maxima commands, and writing some LaTeX equations. I think that
> this is all that the tutorial shows that can be done right now.

The improvement of the Doyen Wiki is a work in progress :-). I will
try to put up
http://doyen.sytes.net/ again so anybody improve the content.

> For this little
> test, I have found the display of LaTeX and Axiom output formulas is fine,
> except for roots. I would prefer fractional exponents as in $(a^2)^(3/5)$. I
> find confusing a root sign with 2,3 and 5 located in three different places
> around the $a$. Maxima output, on the other hand, looks very bad with those $
> signs.

This will be fixed in the next version.

> 3. I have tried an Axiom plot but got an error message:
>
> draw(sin(x),x=0..%pi)
>     >> System error:
>     Cannot create the file /tmp/gazonk0.fn.
>
> Maxima plots do not work as gnuplot is missing. Indeed it should be added.

I am assuming you did this inside the wiki. This is not supported yet. Maybe we
can discuss this with Bill of what is needed to accomplish this.

> 4. I have observed that this implementation is based on a web browser as GUI,
> using png files for displaying math. I wonder why not using mathml instead.
> One disadvantage of the current approach is the generation of png litter.

> I have also read the Sage documentation (I will try to download it later on).
> What I have understood is that they use javascript instead, but not how.
>
> And yet another approach is that of TeXmacs. Indeed, I have found that
> TeXmacs-Axiom works fine under Windows and Linux, except for ploting. So, I
> beleive that it is an application that fits naturally here. In fact, I was also
> expecting to find it inside...

That is an open question to somebody else in the list. Bill ? :-)

> 5. One subproduct say, of your development is that the doyen CD seems to have
> a fairly complete TeX installation. This is missing, in the live CDs that I
> have seen up to now. It could be useful eg in case of needing a working TeX
> system where it is not available.

Ok. Maybe you can help me with this.

> 6. The non uniform default background for the console window is bothersome to
> my taste. I change it every time.

You mean the transparency. :-). (personal taste, my bad).

> 7. The Session Saver says that it has saved successfully the file
> doyenWikiDB.tar.gz in /home/doyen but it saves nothing.

Are you sure of this. Try to save to /home/doyen/Desktop and let me
know. Maybe there is a bug.

> 8. Sooner or later, the accumulation of material will force a move to a DVD as
> media, but before of that, I think that there are some packages that could be
> safely removed without affecting the functionality of this distro as a
> scientific platform.

It is true, but I need to be careful because is not just removing, but
removing things that do not brake the system and provide a substantial
gain in space.

> 9. My USB drive is not mounted at boot nor any entry for it is made in
> /etc/fstab. Anyway, I can mount it later on.

Can you open a bug report for this.

Thank you,

Alfredo