[racket] Possible to install both plt-scheme from repo and racket from racket-lang.org?

From: Horace Dynamite (horace.dynamite at gmail.com)
Date: Sat Aug 14 06:36:59 EDT 2010

> I prefer to use the distro repository to install software when
> possible, since that makes it easier to manage and update (at least
> for a relative Linux newbie), but Debian/Ubuntu hasn't updated the
> plt-scheme package and dependencies to Racket yet.

I do see a Ubuntu download on the Racket download page,
http://racket-lang.org/download/.
It's a shell script, but since they say it's for Ubuntu, chances are
high that it'll build itself using the debian packing tools and
install itself into the dpkg database so you can remove it with
apt-get/aptitude whatever it is you use.

I can't download 42 MB atm to check, so someone else will have to
confirm how this builds. (careful about possibly "masking" existing
binarys, as I mentioned before).

I think these shell script installers ask you where you'd like to
install the files, called a ``prefix" in case you were wondering
before. I'd chose /opt. So that all the binarys/man pages/etc will be
under /opt/racket. If you decide you'd like to remove Racket, just
remove the /opt/racket directory. You could then add /opt/racket/bin
to the end of your $PATH so that drscheme will still be found in the
cannoncial /usr/... location.

If none of this sounds feasible to you, another option is to ask the
package maintainer of PLT Scheme to update the official package.

Horace.


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