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Re: netCDF, GMT and Mac OS X

Hi Paul,

> As you know, GMT is using netCDF for grids, and many GMT users are  
> now 'switching' back to Macs because of OSX.  I understand that your  
> group does not have access to Mac OSX for testing.  However, I think  
> it would be ideal if some testing could take place on OSX before  
> releases.  Remko Scharro, on the GMT developer team and cc'ed in this  
> message, has spent some time looking into this problem and should  
> soon send you some info that might improve the installability of  
> netCDF on Mac OSX (32 and 64 bit versions).  Allthough I hope your  
> group would be able to acquire a Mac for testing (a plain Mac mini  
> goes for < $500 and would let you test 32-bit G4 chips; an iMac G5  
> (64-bit) can be had for < $1,200), in the mean time I would be happy  
> to grant you ssh login privileges on my G5 for testing netCDF.  Since  
> I am in Sydney this year it would work well with the time-zone shifts.

We have had a Mac OSX platform for testing for some time (though not a
G5), and even distribute the current release in the form of a
precompiled ".pkg" file that installs when you double-click it:

  
ftp://ftp.unidata.ucar.edu/pub/binary/darwin_7.8-power_macintosh/netcdf-3.6.0-p1.pkg.zip

I can see why you might conclude we have no support for Mac OSX,
since it's not actually mentioned anywhere on our "NetCDF Installation
and Porting Guide" page at

  http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packges/netcdf/docs/netcdf-install/

but it is listed as a supported platform in our "NetCDF Binaries" page
at 

  http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf/binaries.html

and it's listed as a supported platform in answer to the FAQ "What
does netCDF run on?":

  http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf/docs/faq.html#platforms
The machine we test and build on is my G4 PowerBook (running 10.4.2
currently).  Apple doesn't supply a Fortran compiler, but I've built
successfully with g77 and Absoft, and I wrote some notes about the
latter build:

  http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf/docs/other-builds.html#absoft

I'll see if I can make our support for Mac OSX more apparent on our
web site.  Incidentally. I've never owned a Windows machine and I'm
now on my second Mac OSX laptop, but I still develop on a Sun at
work.  I'm a big fan of Macs ...

> I note that although setting FC=<blank> skips building the Fortran  
> interface, make test still tries to test the Fortran interface and  
> tries to run fort77 which fails on Mac OSX.

OK, thanks, we'll fix it if we can reproduce the problem.

I see there's another email from Remko Scharroo on this subject, so
I'll send a separate reply to that.

--Russ