On Fri, Feb 21, 2003 at 01:01:56AM +0200, Tuomo Valkonen wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 20, 2003 at 10:40:12PM +0100, Per Olofsson wrote:
> > Are autoconf scripts broken?
>
> Often they do not find the libraries although they are there and options
> to set the paths don't work. Some scripts also require and check for
> unncessary things.
Ion has zero or one (xft) external library dependencies, and you can choose
what to check for. Certainly, some autoconf scripts check for way too much
(perhaps it makes the author feel important), but there's no reason for
Ion's autoconf to be bloated.
> > What do you suggest doing when a package depends on several other
> > libraries or need to check some things like library versions and
> > availability of certain functions? Write your own configure script?
> > Use Imake?
>
> People who can't check a few Makefile options probably use binary packages.
I use ion-devel, but I want my distribution to manage as much of my software
for me as possible. I've recently switched to Gentoo from Mandrake. SPECs
were a nightmare to write but Gentoo's ebuilds are very straightforward. So,
I've written ebuild scripts to manage what I used to maintain myself in
/usr/local.
autoconf scripts make it much easier for package maintainers! Have a look at
the gentoo ebuild script for ion-devel:
http://bugs.gentoo.org/attachment.cgi?id=8536&action=view
There's eleven ugly lines of sed to patch system.mk and Makefile, all
because Ion doesn't support autoconf.
> A minimal library to get around some of the most common OS function
> availability/compatibility issues should be written.
glib/gtk? Netscape Portable Runtime? wxWindows? These things exist but they
seem a bit of an overkill for Ion.
> The foobar-config scripts provide a simple way to get the necessary
> parameters for libraries that provide the scripts within makefiles.
> Versions could be written for libraries/OSes that still miss them.
> The scripts could also be used to create a 'make check' target that
> can be used to check if something is missing when compile fails or
> before the compile at the user's discretion (unlike with autoconf, which
> forces sometimes lenghty and unnecessary waits). Similar scripts could
> be used to get other system information. All without giving up readable
> and easily fixable/customizable Makefiles (same can not be said of autoconf
> scripts or the resulting Makefiles that have to be fixed in every directory).
In the meantime, please would you accept an autoconf script?
Regards,
Tom
