[PD] installing latest pd vanilla on RPI

[Simon Wise via Pd-list]

On 03/07/14 22:55, Alexandre Torres Porres via Pd-list wrote:
> Hi IOhannes, I read your other answer giving more info on why it could be
> outdated even if released a couple of weeks ago. I think I get, although
> I'd still assume or don't see why pd wouldn't be available at "apt-get" if
> it were up to date.

The meaning of 'stable' in debian is that it does not change, and apt-get 
fetches packages that you wish to install from this base (it would be possible 
for someone to maintain the latest pd as a raspbian package, but it is almost as 
easy to install from Millers site so no-one bothers ... the fact that pd is in 
debian means it gets tested on ARM and the version in 'stable' automatically 
gets built as part of raspbian with no extra work, which was especially nice 
when raspbian first came out). This system allows distributions like raspbian to 
have a predictable base that they can then take the time required to adapt for 
their purposes, and it allows sites like Millers to build the up-to-date 
versions within that known framework so that they 'just work' (and will still 
work a few weeks later) because all the stuff it depends on does not keep 
changing versions every day.

In the case of raspbian they have compiled debian with lots of modifications to 
suit their particular CPU and have added and keep working on lots of extra stuff 
that is specifically for their GPU and peripherals etc. They then maintain 
raspbian with all these added things updated from time to time but staying with 
'stable' as the base. Presumably they will move to jessie sometime for their 
main version (probably not till they get it tested and running cleanly sometime 
after it is 'frozen' in advance of it becoming the new stable ... this freeze 
would be expected reasonably soon, debian does this on a two year cycle). But 
that does involve lots of work and lots of testing since they are building the 
whole of debian for an architecture which is halfway between the two official 
debian architectures (the CPU is a rather old version of ARM, but with floating 
point hardware). Chasing all the changes in the latest versions of everything 
all the time would be very hard work.

As for menus or desktop icons ... it is just a little text file called 
"puredata.desktop" containing something like:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Pure Data
Comment=Visual dataflow programming platform for multimedia
Comment[ca]=Plataforma de programació visual per aplicacions multimèdia
Comment[de]=Grafische Datenflussprogrammierung für Multimedia
Comment[es]=Plataforma de programación visual para aplicaciones multimedia
Comment[fr]=Plateforme de programmation visuelle pour applications multimédia
Comment[it]=Piattaforma di programmazione visuale per applicazioni multimedia
Comment[pt]=Plataforma de programação visuais para multimedia
Exec=pd -noadc %F
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=puredata.xpm
Categories=AudioVideo;Audio;Video;Development
MimeType=text/x-puredata;application/x-maxmsp;text/x-maxmsp;
StartupNotify=false

using the appropriate "Exec=" line, and an appropriate file for "Icon="

if you add this file to the folder "/usr/share/applications" then it should turn 
up in menus, or if you put it on the desktop it should show up as an icon you 
can drag and drop to.


But the RPis are not very powerful, and running them without a desktop (using 
ssh or similar over ethernet and /etc/rc.local to launch stuff on boot) makes a 
lot of sense.

Simon