From: bangerth <bangerth@0785d39b-7218-0410-832d-ea1e28bc413d>
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:41:15 +0000 (+0000)
Subject: Re-word the supported platforms list. Update mailing list address.
X-Git-Url: https://gitweb.dealii.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?a=commitdiff_plain;h=153fd196ab6585a7afdf3910017f0f4c85086aed;p=dealii-svn.git

Re-word the supported platforms list. Update mailing list address.

git-svn-id: https://svn.dealii.org/trunk@27162 0785d39b-7218-0410-832d-ea1e28bc413d
---

diff --git a/deal.II/doc/navbar.html b/deal.II/doc/navbar.html
index 8f7dcfcd73..b6c72dd745 100644
--- a/deal.II/doc/navbar.html
+++ b/deal.II/doc/navbar.html
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
   <title>deal.II navigation bar</title>
   <link href="screen.css" rel="StyleSheet">
   <meta name="author" content="the deal.II authors <authors@dealii.org>">
-  <meta name="copyright" content="Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011 by the deal.II authors">
+  <meta name="copyright" content="Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 by the deal.II authors">
   <meta name="date" content="2006/02/07 22:49:06">
   <meta name="svn_id" content="$Id$">
 </head>
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@
   <a href="http://dealii.sourceforge.net/index.php?title=Deal.II_Questions_and_Answers" target="_top">FAQ</a><br />
   <a href="news/news.html" target="body">News</a><br />
   <a href="http://www.dealii.org/download/" target="body">Download</a><br />
-  <a href="http://www.dealii.org/mailman/listinfo/dealii" target="body">Mailing list</a><br />
+  <a href="http://www.dealii.org/mail.html" target="body">Mailing list</a><br />
   <a href="http://dealii.sourceforge.net/" target="_top">Wiki</a><br />
   <a href="https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/dealii" target="_top">Bug tracker</a><br />
   </p>
diff --git a/deal.II/doc/readme.html b/deal.II/doc/readme.html
index bbb9dc291b..c4fa3c0423 100644
--- a/deal.II/doc/readme.html
+++ b/deal.II/doc/readme.html
@@ -51,54 +51,44 @@
 
     <a name="supported"></a>
     <h3>Supported platforms</h3>
-    At present, <acronym>deal.II</acronym> has been
-    developed and tested on the following platforms:
-    <ul>
-      <li>Linux on x86, with gcc 3.3, 3.4, 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5; and
-          Intel ICC 10.0, 11.0 and 12; clang 3.1
-      <li>Linux on x86_64 (Opteron, AMD64, and Intel EM64T chips) using gcc
-          3.3, 3.4, 4.0, 4.1, 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5; clang 3.1
-      <li>Mac OS X 10.2 or later, with gcc 4.0 or later (Please see the <a href="http://dealii.sourceforge.net/index.php?title=Main_Page"
-          target="_top">deal.II Wiki</a> for installation issues);
-      <li>Sun Solaris 2.5, 2.6, 7, 8, and 9 on Sparc, with
-          gcc 3.2, 3.3, 3.4;
-      <li>Linux on IA-64 (Itanium), using gcc 3.4.2, 4.1.2 and ICC
-          9.1, ICC 10.0;
-      <li>Linux on x86, with the PathScale EKOPath compiler version
-          2.2 (though only with static instead of shared libraries);
-      <li>Linux on x86, with Portland Groups (PGI) pgCC compiler
-          version 7.1 and 7.2;
-      <li>AIX 5.3 on Power 6, with gcc 4.3;
-      <li><a href="http://www.cygwin.com"
-          target="_top">Cygwin/Windows</a> with cygwin1.dll versions
-          1.5.xx, and gcc 3.3 and 3.4 under Windows XP and
-          NT. For <a href="http://dealii.sourceforge.net/index.php?title=Windows"
-          target="_top">installing under Windows</a>, please refer to
-          additional information on
-          the <a href="http://dealii.sourceforge.net/index.php?title=Main_Page"
-          target="_top">deal.II Wiki</a>!
-    </ul>
-    Newer versions of the compilers listed above are also likely to
-    work, as are other brands of Unix (for example Sun Solaris,
-    FreeBSD, or Linux on chips like SPARC, PA-RISC, PowerPC, etc) using
-    gcc as compiler, but we do not regularly test them.
 
     <p>
-      There are of course many other C++ compilers out there though
-      they seem to become fewer and fewer. Our experience is that with
-      most of them some part or other of the C++ standard is not
-      supported and they eventually fail on a project as large as
-      deal.II. Some may in fact work if one puts in enough time, but
-      your best bet is probably to stick with the ones listed above.
+      <acronym>deal.II</acronym> is mostly developed on Linux using the
+      <a href="http://gcc.gnu.org">GCC</a> compiler. However, it is not
+      platform specific and we strive to keep the source code C++
+      standard compliant.
     </p>
 
     <p>
-    <acronym>deal.II</acronym> uses only very few features of an
-    operating system. It should therefore be rather simple to port it
-    to other systems, at least with the compilers stated above. If
-    your system is not on this list, take a look at the page that
-    describes <a href="porting.html" target="body">porting the library
-    to new systems</a>.
+      We expect that <acronym>deal.II</acronym> should work on the following
+      platforms:
+      <ul>
+	<li>Linux: using the GCC compiler versions 4.0 or later; using the
+	  clang compiler version 3.1 or later.
+	<li>Mac OS X: using the GCC compiler version 4.0 or later (Please see
+          the <a href="http://dealii.sourceforge.net/index.php?title=Main_Page"
+		 target="_top">deal.II Wiki</a> for installation issues);
+	<li><a href="http://www.cygwin.com"
+               target="_top">Cygwin/Windows</a> with recent GCC
+          versions. For <a href="http://dealii.sourceforge.net/index.php?title=Windows"
+			   target="_top">installing on Windows</a>, please refer to
+          additional information on
+          the <a href="http://dealii.sourceforge.net/index.php?title=Main_Page"
+		 target="_top">deal.II Wiki</a>!
+      </ul>
+      Most other combinations of POSIX-style operating systems and C++
+      standards compliant compilers should also work. If they don't, please
+      report it as a bug.
+    </p>
+
+    <p>
+      There are many C++ compilers out there. Our experience is that,
+      unfortunately, most of them do not fully support the C++ 1998 standard
+      upon which we build, and they eventually fail on a project as large as
+      deal.II. Your best bet is to stick with the ones listed above. The only
+      platform where this is not trivial is Microsoft Windows where the widely
+      used Microsoft Visual C++ compiler simply has too many bugs supporting
+      advanced C++ code.
     </p>
 
 
@@ -108,31 +98,14 @@
     In order to compile and use the <acronym>deal.II</acronym>
     libraries you need to have the following programs installed:
     <ul>
-      <li> <p>
-           A fairly complete C++ compiler. Various working compilers
-           are listed above. We do not support gcc versions older than
-           3.2 any more at this time.
-           Note that we are interested in writing portable C++, so if you find
-           something that does not work with your compiler, we are
-           likely to accept patches.
-	   </p>
-
       <li> <p>
            Perl: Any Perl 5.x version should work.
 	   </p>
 
       <li> <p>
            Make: We use <a href="http://www.gnu.org"
-           target="_top">GNU make</a>, version 3.78 or later which also
-           has rather good support for parallel builds, so you may
-           want to consider this version if you have a multiprocessor
-           system. GNU make 3.77 had a serious flaw in the
-           <code>$(wildcard ...)</code> function which prevented us
-           from compiling some parts of the library (most of our
-           Makefiles use a workaround, though). Older GNU make
-           versions are likely to work, but since they are hardly
-           installed on systems today, we don't regularly test
-           this. Other make programs (i.e. non-GNU) will usually fail
+           target="_top">GNU make</a>, version 3.78 or later. Other make
+           programs (i.e. non-GNU) will usually fail
            to work and are not supported.
 	   </p>
 
@@ -737,7 +710,7 @@
       install the <a href="http://www.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/">HDF5 library</a>
       separately. Configure with <code>--with-hdf5=</code> and point it to
       the h5pcc or h5cc script inside your hdf5 installation.
-      
+
       For a detailed description of how to compile HDF5 and linking with
       deal.II, see <a href="external-libs/hdf5.html" target="body">this
       page</a>.
@@ -752,12 +725,12 @@
     <p>
     Some information beyond what is covered in the documentation of
     the library may be found on the
-    <a href="http://www.dealii.org" target="_top">homepage of
-    <acronym>deal.II</acronym></a>, or in the
+    <a href="http://www.dealii.org" target="_top"><acronym>deal.II</acronym>
+    homepage</a>, or in the
     <a href="http://dealii.sourceforge.net/index.php?title=Deal.II_Questions_and_Answers" target="_top">Frequently Asked Questions</a> section.
     If you don't find what you're looking for,
     feel free to ask on our
-    <a href="http://www.dealii.org/mailman/listinfo/dealii" target="body">Mailing list</a>.
+    <a href="http://www.dealii.org/mail.html" target="body">mailing list</a>.
     </p>
 
     <p>