[ncl-install] ncl 6.1, ESMF, Linux and OSX

[David B. Reusch]

I'm upgrading to 6.1 (from 6.0) on my Linux (Redhat 5 and 6) and OSX 
(10.6 and 10.8) systems and have run into some questions/problems.

1a. On Linux, I'm using the 686 Debian (non-opendap) binary because 
there's no 686 Redhat version.  I have a pretty good idea that this is 
behind the problem I'm seeing but bear with me a moment.  After install, 
I'm using ESMF functions to try to do a regrid.  The two 
curvilinear_to_SCRIP calls are fine, but then the ESMF_RegridWeightGen 
call fails when it can't find libcurl_gnutls.so.4.  I don't have that 
library and, from a brief look around, it seems this is only distributed 
in Debian.  If so, then the fact I'm using a Debian binary on a Redhat 
system is a perfect explanation for the error.  But my real question is 
*why* is this library needed for the weight generation call?  Seems odd.

1b. I'll actually be migrating my Linux boxes to Fedora in mid-December, 
probably to x64, but I'd like to know that I won't run into similar 
problems with missing libraries if I use the RH x64 binary.  I know RH 
is "spawned" from Fedora so wouldn't expect problems but having a 
Fedora-specific binary available would be terrific.

2a.  On OSX, I have a 10.6 machine that I'll be upgrading to 10.8 but 
not soon enough for the work I need to do now.  Would it be possible to 
have a 10.6 binary created?  Or is there any reason the 10.7 binary 
wouldn't work on 10.6?  I've already updated to gcc 4.7 to avoid the 
problems with that being too old that were recently mentioned on 
ncl-talk, but there might be other issues.

2b. The binary installed fine on my 10.8 laptop but I've run into some 
weirdness with creating the weights file in one combination of 
curvilinear grids -- but I'll use ncl-talk for that question!

Thanks,
Dave

-- 
Associate Research Professor of Climatology
Dept of Earth and Environmental Science
MSEC 304; 801 Leroy Place
New Mexico Tech
Socorro, NM 87801