Re: Source dependencies
Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
> It is becoming clear from our porting bootstrapping efforts and
> various other things that source dependencies are probably required.
I think it's clear that a lot of people are under the _impression_
source dependencies are probably required, and I think your proposal
(with Guy's modification) is probably a sensible way to implement
that.
But in working on the Alpha port, and thinking about the "single
source tree" idea, I am unconvinced that source dependencies are
really going to solve anything. Please consider:
In porting to the Alpha, I have only found a couple of packages where
it would have made much of a difference---and even then I only wasted
a few minutes compiling the tool I needed before restarting on the one
that cause the problem.
Mind you, I've not finished base and the various compiling-type tools
yet, and it may be a different thing once I'm working on a wider
spectrum of packages, but there are so many other issues with porting
I wonder whether source dependencies are going to really be of much
value.
Even just porting to glibc, which is another thing you always hear
mentioned, you have to go back and stick #include <errno.h> in an
awful lot of code, and #define __GNU_SOURCE all over the place, so
source dependencies will be of only occasional use.
In fact, I also have my doubts about the single tree rebuild concept,
because the only reason I've seen for supporting it is "to ensure a
system that's been compiled with a consistent set of tools, etc.", but
we're not actually going to be able to provide that unless:
1) We mangle make files for every package to insure that during
linking they first look at ../libc for tools to link to, or
2) Somehow contruct a chroot'd environment as we go along, and link
against this.
Otherwise, if the compiling person's got libc-5.2.18 on her machine
and recompiles everything, even if glibc-2.0.1 is in the source tree,
it's not going to be what everything is linked against, so the whole
idea of "turn it on and walk away" is not applicable---and if you
can't do that, what's the value-add?
Or am I missing something?
Mike.
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