[Developers] Out-of-the-box compilable ThornList

[Steve White]

Hi,

Last week, Erik and I discussed the question of how to improve the
out-of-the-box compilation of Cactus, specifically, of the automatically-
generated ThornList.

===========
The problem
===========

Currently, if one gets a fresh download of Cactus, then gmake checkout, 
then, say, gmake myconfig, it will create a ThornList for all the thorns 
in the arrangements directory.  Then it will invite the user to edit the 
ThornList.

If the user chooses not edit the ThornList, and doesn't get one from 
elsewhere, probably a gmake myconfig will fail.  This can be offputting 
for new or potential users.

For example, on my laptop, which is already set up for Cactus compiling,
I get:

 	CST error 1:
   	-> Configuration script for thorn LORENE returned exit code 2
 	Error message: 'Unable to locate the Lorene directory - please set
                    LORENE_DIR'

 	CST error 2:
 	-> Configuration script for thorn PETSc returned exit code 2
 	Error message: 'Unable to locate the PETSc directory - please set
                    PETSC_DIR'

 	CST error 3:
 	-> Configuration script for thorn SDF returned exit code 255
 	Error message: 'SDF requires an external SDF installation. Please
         specify SDF_DIR to point to this installation or remove thorn SDF
         from your ThornList !'

Furthermore, thorn TestAllTypes fails to compile, due to various
things being undefined.

To get the basic install to compile, I have to comment out 6 thorns.

==========================
What can we do about this?
==========================

One solution would be to relocate thorns that require uncommon libraries
and environments; these would be available in a separate download.

Is it possible to educate the mechanism which builds the initial ThornList 
to comment out thorns for which the user's environment is insufficient?

Any other ideas?

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve White : Programmer
Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik      Albert-Einstein-Institut
Am Mühlenberg 1, D-14476 Golm, Germany                  +49-331-567-7625