On 11/9/2016 1:44 PM, Richard Hipp wrote:
The existing download works great on the vast majority of
Linuxdesktops. For the small minority where it doesn't work,
"./configure;make" is an easy alternative.
I think at least part of the issue is that the download is described as
"Linux 3.x x86" just as it has been for the past several releases. But
the available file now contains an "ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64"
where the previous version was "ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386".
I didn't check any prior versions.
Changing from 32-bit to 64-bit was possibly a surprise. And certainly
won't work if the machine happens to be running a 32-bit kernel, where I
believe the 64-bit kernel can (usually? often? always? I'm not sure
here...) run the 32-bit binary.
The random linux box I tested on (at my web host, I'm a Windows shop
mostly) says its Linux 3.2.61-grsec-modsign ... x86_64. It does appear
to run both files, at least ./fossil version worked. I'm not tempted to
try the test suite there, but the fossil I built for it myself with
./configure;make works well on it.
Maybe it is past time to switch the Linux prebuilt binary to 64-bit. I
don't have an opinion about that. But if it is, we should probably at
least say that the link is x86_64, not plain x86.
Where does one draw the line? If we have separate builds for 64-bit
and 32-bit Intel Fossil, what about ARM? Or Sparc? Or PowerPC. Hey,
why no VAX build?
IMHO, the download page should get a more prominent link to building
advice, perhaps the existing "Compiling and Installing Fossil" page at
doc/trunk/www/build.wiki would be a good candidate. A second paragraph
at the top that says something about the tarball and ./configure;make
being a good starting point if one of the prebuilt binaries is not
suitable, and also links to build.wiki for further discussion would help
a user who got to the download, possibly without even seeing the front page.
....But I'm not particularly motivated to add an ever-growing assortment
of precompiled binaries to the download page. If anything, I'd like
to cull a few. Linux and OpenBSD being obvious candidates since
"./configure;make" works so well on those platforms.
Obviously you can't be expected to provide official binaries for every
platform and configure option. I might be tempted to drop the Linux and
OpenBSD builds since those are platforms that almost always come with
the compiler, unlike Mac and Windows which don't.
I couldn't use a VAX build myself, but a PDP11 on RT11 would be amusing.
Not sure it can be done, though.
--
Ross Berteig r...@cheshireeng.com
Cheshire Engineering Corp. http://www.CheshireEng.com/
+1 626 303 1602
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