ASCO optimization doesn't work with QucsatorRF but works with Qucsator

[ra3xdh]

The reason for this issue is that qucsator executable name is hardcoded inside ASCO sources. Also ASCO always assumes that qucsator is available from $PATH. This may make difficulties for running a portable version. The ways to resolve this:

• Provide a patched version of ASCO with the next release
• Submit a patch to ASCO that allows to set the path to qucsator excutable

[ra3xdh]

I have prepared a patched version of ASCO here: https://github.com/ra3xdh/asco_qucs_s Compile and install this version if you need to run optimizer with Qucs-S+QucsatorRF. You have to set the environment variable ASCO_SIM_PATH to full path to qucsator_rf if you are using stable v24.2.1 release. For example ASCO_SIM_PATH=/usr/bin/qucsator_rf The version from Git applies this environment variable automatically. I have submitted a patch to ASCO developers. Let's wait for reaction. If the patch will be not accepted, I will provide the patched ASCO version with the next Qucs-S release.

[ra3xdh]

I have contacted ASCO developers and they didn't advice to patch the ASCO. The #843 provides an another solution.

• For Linux the temporary symlink qucsator pointing to qucsator_rf is created. This makes possible to run the system-wide installed vanilla ASCO and avoid the distribution of the patched ASCO version with DEB/RPM packages. This prevents a possible conflict with ASCO package on some distributions.
• For Windows only patched ASCO version works. The approach using general.sh didn't work because the script name again is hardcoded inside ASCO. I will add a patched asco.exe in the Windows installer. This is not a problem for Windows.

Closing this as resolved.