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Description

For scientific software such as frameworks for solving PDEs, the actual implementation
is only part of becoming a successful project. Another important aspect is making the
software accessible for users.
On Linux distributions, users expect to be able to easily install the software they daily
use via the distribution’s software management system. However, the installation in-
structions for many scientific software packages expect the user to install the software
from source. While this is the only general method for installation, it is often a hard
first task for users, especially when a complex dependency tree is involved.
In this talk, I will give a brief overview how software in Linux distributions is managed,
the typical life-cycle of distributions, what distributions can and cannot provide for
the scientific software community, and how developers of scientific software can help
making packaging their software easier.
The talk will for the most part concentrate on distributions that provide pre-compiled
binaries like Debian or Ubuntu, with some considerations for source-based distribu-
tions, and on libraries and applications written in C or C++.