apt-cache search povray

gives me:

airstrike-common - 2d dogfight game - data files
gdis - molecular and crystal model viewer
gpsprune - visualize, edit, convert and prune GPS data
povray - Persistence of vision raytracer (3D renderer)
povray-examples - Persistence of vision raytracer (3D renderer) sample files
povray-includes - Persistance of vision raytracer (3D renderer) include files
qtpovray - Qt IDE for POV-Ray (a 3D renderer)
qtpovray-extras - Help, samples, and example data files for qtpovray.
qtpovray-includes - POV-Ray include files for qtpovray.

So I'm assuming that I can just do

sudo apt-get install povray

and the next time I do "upgrade", it will update anything...?

I don't know how the packages work and how it's different from installing from
source.   But mentioning the apt-get method on the download/installlation page
would be small but significant change.

> As to your other comments about the web site, I agree. What I know is
> those maintaining the web site have been buried with real life for a
> long time and can only occasionally do minor things we see. This is
> partly because they've continued doing many of the ongoing, invisible
> maintenance things for the web site in the little hobby time they've got.

I'm not sure how the folks who are in charge of that acquire the position, but
perhaps some redundancy - having 3 people assigned the same job and access -
might be a good idea, since it would open up some bottlenecks.

> I would say the wiki is a possibility for some of us to step in with
> alternative pages to which we could point new users. Except! For a long
> time I've not been able to create links (months since checking, fixed?).
> I find it awkward to use though maybe with more practice that gets
> better. Lastly, the trouble with user supported wiki's is they also
> become outdated if the users don't continue support - it's the state of
> our user wiki today.

Perhaps there's a 3rd party system we can take advantage of - or something on
the news.povray server that could run in parallel.
People I know run a forum using Simple Machines (and I don't think they're
advanced tech people, so it ought to be easy...)
FUDforum looks like it supports Thunderbird, which i know people here use a lot.

> The only open source tooling I see not suffering major stalls are those
> with core development somehow funded/supported over the long term.

Sure.  That makes sense.
AFAIK, there are a lot of STEM people using POV-Ray professionally - for things
like illustrations for science and math articles, physics, dissertations,
journal covers, data visualization, etc.
I don't know how things behind the scenes work, but perhaps a small ad in C&E
News, or elsewhere asking for small donations from research grants, etc might
bring in enough to accomplish some goals and bring things that much closer to v
4.0.


> One of the things I like about POV-Ray is it's a relatively tranquil
> place compared to the screaming noise that is most of the internet /
> modern life.

Indeed.   We have our fun, and at the same time most of the folks seem to
exercise some level of tact and restraint.  There are plenty of other places to
click over to if you want to have a flame war, engage in wild insanity, be an
ideological zealot on your soapbox, or attack the other side in the highly
polarized world of politics.   All while getting more than your fair share of
cat pictures, memes, selfies, and misinfo/disinfo.

> Were the web site to get major updates, my hope would be
> for a kinda boring, clean correctness so as not to attract too much
> attention... :-)

I don't necessarily think that much needs to be done in terms of drastic
changes.
Most of what I'd like to see is updated information and minor improvements in
ease-of-use.   Allowing attachments in all of the sections of the forum would be
great, and maybe some mechanism for allowing larger uploads.

And removal of that vertical line artifact in the logo at the top right.   ;)

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