[Pkg-ace-devel] [ace-users] autotools

[Pau Garcia i Quiles]

On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 7:24 PM, Thomas Girard <thomas.g.girard at free.fr> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Johnny Willemsen wrote:
>>
>> Just not use autoconf as way to build a packaged tree. Use the
>> config.h/platform_macros.GNU approach to compile ACE. Than supply patches
>> for the debianbuild back to the mailing list so that things can be
>> integrated into ACE. That is the only way how things can be maintained,
>> putting packaging files outside of the core distribution is a maintenance
>> nightmare.
>
> Here's my point of view:
>  * it's easier to track packaging outside of the trunk, and synch
>   packaging when needed. Debian and ACE+TAO have different contraints
>   and schedule. It's harder to track a moving target rather than a
>   chosen one. Dependencies are evolving as well (g++, QT, autotools),
>   so focusing on the trunk version of ACE+TAO is something that
>   requires a lot of spare time.
>
>   Pease remember that once a version is available through Debian stable
>   it has to be supported by the Debian maintainer.

Fully agreed. In fact, I'd prefer if the 'debianbuild' contents would
be removed and it just contained a README.Debian telling people to go
to http://packages.debian.org/libace-dev for the source/binary
packages, and pkg-ace-devel if they want to help with packaging.


>   Anyway, now that Pau has stepped in to help on the maintenance the
>   Debian packages will be updated from 5.6.3+1.6.3 to the latest
>   release.
>
>  * autoconf support will *not* be dropped from the packages. This effort
>   has already improved ACE+TAO autoconf support. Debian runs on many
>   different architectures and OS (GNU/kFreeBSD, GNU/Hurd); so having
>   autoconf working out of the box is something that will benefit
>   both Debian and ACE+TAO.
>
>   But we can prepare an alternative package build mechanism that will
>   rely on the traditional method, and have this mechanism be the
>   default package building mode for Linux platforms.
>
> Pau wrote:
>>>
>>> It does not work on Debian Unstable, for instance  ("Debian" meaning
>>> "any Debian-derivative, including Ubuntu"). The generated 'configure'
>>> does not work. I'm trying to bring ACE 5.7.4 to Debian using the ACE
>>> 5.6.3 packaging as the starting point. The generated 'configure' file
>>> does not work.
>
> (...)
>
> I eventually found the culprits on the 5.6.3+1.6.3 version. Using the latest
> autotools, we have two errors:
>  1. there's and 'else fi' generated in configure, and the shell can't
>    grok it when there's nothing in between. It seems easy to fix this.

Yes, I had already located and worked this around.

>  2. there's an 'fidone' instead of 'fi done'. This can be, at least,
>    worked-around.

Thanks! This was the main stopper I was suffering now. I had not
noticed the 'fidone's (there are several of them). I have now manually
fixed them and ACE 5.7.4 is building. This makes ACE 5.7.4 be "almost"
in Debian :-)

> I think packages for 5.6.3+1.6.3, even if outdated, should compile again
> on Debian/unstable with those fixes.

It'd require a few patches from pkg-ace/trunk/debian/patches still
(93-96 but I'm speaking from memory).

I'll have some news on the Debian packaging for 5.7.4 this Tuesday night.

-- 
Pau Garcia i Quiles
http://www.elpauer.org
(Due to my workload, I may need 10 days to answer)