1. Scilab as a packaging perspective

The Scilab consortium encourages distributions to create packages of Scilab.

1.1. Advised package layout

From the upstream tarballs, the packaging layout can be the following:

Name of the package	Description	Architecture	Depends	Recommends
scilab	The main package of Scilab	all	scilab-cli scilab-full-bin	scilab-doc scilab-doc-fr scilab-doc-pt-br
scilab-cli	Scilab as a computing engine	all	scilab-minimal-bin scilab-data scilab-include
libscilab-java	The Java Scilab API	any	scilab-full-bin
scilab-data	Multiplatform data	all
scilab-doc	The english documentation	all
scilab-doc-fr	The french documentation	all
scilab-doc-pt-br	The Brazilian Portuguese documentation documentation	all
scilab-include	All headers used by the dynamic link	any
scilab-minimal-bin	The basic library necessary for scilab-cli	any	scilab-data
scilab-minimal-bin-dbg	The debugging symbol library of scilab-minimal-bin	any
scilab-full-bin	All the remaining libraries mandatory for scilab Depends on scilab-minimal-bin	any	scilab-minimal-bin
scilab-full-bin-dbg	The debugging symbol library of scilab-full-bin	any
scilab-test	All Scilab unitary/non-reg tests	all

Runtime Java thirdparty dependencies should depend on scilab-full-bin since scilab-cli (which depends on scilab-minimal-bin) can be used without any Java code.

1.2. Note for distribution packagers

Scilab consortium is contributing to the packaging of Scilab under Debian and Ubuntu. Therefor, this allow to update and patch Scilab to work correctly under distributions. These patches can be used freely by other distributions: See Debian/Ubuntu related patches

Patches for other distributions are also available:

1.3. Third party dependencies

All Scilab dependencies are described in the page Dependencies of Scilab 5.X. Usually, when not available, new dependencies are packaged into Debian before a new release of Scilab. Don't hesitate to reuse patches.

1.4. Contact

For packaging aspects, please subscribe to the distributor mailing list.

1.5. Some distribution patches

As said previously, Scilab consortium contributes to Debian/Ubuntu by packaging Scilab and some of it dependencies. Here is the list of available patches which can be reused by other distributions.

1.5.1. Scilab 5.2.1

Patch file	Description
addchapter.diff	Only load the help when the scilab-doc package is installed
adddemo.diff	Enables the demos when available
buildDocPT_BR.diff	Builds the português do Brasil documentation
jhdf2.6.diff	Adapt the code of Scilab to build against JHDF 2.6
librarypath.diff	Update the library path for Debian paths
missingaddchapter.diff	A help chapter was not loaded in the doc
modelicac-not-available.diff	ocamlopt is not available under all architectures. Provide a feedback to the user about that
renesas-sh.diff	Support of Linux under Renesas SH(sh4)
s390javadetection.diff	Support of Linux under s390
sparc64.diff	Support of Linux under sparc64

1.6. FAQ

1.6.1. I get an error about HDF5 with Scilab 5.2.0 ?

    [javac] /usr/src/packages/BUILD/scilab-5.2.0/modules/hdf5/src/java/org/scila
b/modules/hdf5/read/H5Read.java:56: cannot find symbol
    [javac] symbol  : method H5Gget_obj_info_all(int,java.lang.String,java.lang.
String[],int[])
    [javac] location: class ncsa.hdf.hdf5lib.H5
    [javac]     H5.H5Gget_obj_info_all(fileId, groupName, allObjectsName, allObj
ectsType); 
    [javac]       ^
    [javac] Note: /usr/src/packages/BUILD/scilab-5.2.0/modules/hdf5/src/java/org/scilab/modules/hdf5/read/H5ReadScilabCommonList.java uses unchecked or unsafe operations.
    [javac] Note: Recompile with -Xlint:unchecked for details.
    [javac] 1 error

It is because you are trying to build Scilab against JHDF2.6. Apply this patch

1.6.2. I get and error about jgraphx with Scilab 5.2.0 ?

    [javac] /usr/src/packages/BUILD/scilab-5.2.0/modules/xcos/src/java/org/scilab/modules/graph/ScilabGraph.java:78: cannot find symbol                          
    [javac] symbol  : method getArgAt(int)                                                                                                                       
    [javac] location: class com.mxgraph.util.mxEventObject                                                                                                       
    [javac]             undoManager.undoableEditHappened((mxUndoableEdit) evt.getArgAt(0));      
[...]
                                                                    
    [javac] /usr/src/packages/BUILD/scilab-5.2.0/modules/xcos/src/java/org/scilab/modules/xcos/palette/XcosPalette.java:190: cannot find symbol                  
    [javac] symbol  : constructor mxEventObject(java.lang.Object[])                                                                                              
    [javac] location: class com.mxgraph.util.mxEventObject                                                                                                       
    [javac]     eventSource.fireEvent(mxEvent.SELECT, new mxEventObject(new Object[] {

It is because you are using a recent version of jgraphx. Apply this patch

1.6.3. Why scilab-include is not Arch: all (ie the same package for all archs) ?

Because some elements in machine.h are different between 32 & 64 bits and some modules (toolboxes) relies on it.