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Software releases
Offline computing tutorial Maintained by T. Wenaus

As described in the release organization and policy document there are five release versions maintained at any given time: dev, new, pro, frozen, old. The recommended version for end users is pro. If you are making use of very new software or you're working at the bleeding edge of development you may need to use new or dev.

Only use dev if you absolutely need to, and use it with the expectation of instability because that's the reality. Changes are being made continuously. Libraries are being rebuilt regularly, so a library may be unavailable or symbols may suddenly be unresolved because the library is being rebuilt.

It is not necessary to use the dev version in order to work with new software. Use pro or new and check out from the repository the portions of pams/, kumacs/, etc. that you need, or all of it if you really want to be independent. The makefiles will use the versions local to your area.

Except for dev, where changes are continuous, changes to versions are announced a week in advance.

Release announcements are sent to the STARREL-L (release announcements) mailing list as well as the STARSOFT-L (general software postings) list. Archives are available on the mailing lists page.

Principal characteristics of the different versions:

The default that is set up by the standard login is pro. If you want to use something other than pro, issue from your .tcshrc or at the command line one of the commands stardev, starnew, starpro, starfrozen, starold. These commands configure all environment variables to point to the corresponding version.

You can use an arbitrary version, in particular one not linked to one of the standard versions, via the starver version command, eg. starver 98c. For example, a 'new' version that is replaced but not migrated to 'pro' will persist for a while as an unlinked version, accessible via starver.

To see what command maps to what version look in $STAR_ROOT/packages. Versions dev, new, pro etc. are generally links pointing to release directories SL*.

To see what version you're set up to use, type 'which staf' or 'STAR_LEVELS'.

For status information on the current releases visit the releases page linked from the offline software page.