[gobolinux-users] Roadmap for 014, Scripts, Compile, etc

[Carlo Calica]

On 3/4/07, Erick Tryzelaar <erickt at dslextreme.com> wrote:
> mpb wrote:
> >
> >         Should Rootless "just work" on:
> > * Mac OS X?
> > * FreeBSD?  DragonFlyBSD?
> > * Solaris?
> > * Cygwin?
> > * Etc?
> >
> >         Should Rootless be described as Experimental on some of those
> > platforms?  What level of "just work"-ness do we want to
> > publicize/promise to potential users?
>

The main issue is of testers.  Unless we have committed testers for
each platform Rootless should be considered experimental.  I tested
cygwin 18 months ago.  The scripts work quite well.  I could build
simple packages just fine.  I couldn't build a dll/library though.  I
just didn't know enough about the cygwin build environment to debug
it.

> At least for OS X, rootless doesn't really work for me, unfortunately. A
> decent amount of packages depend on linux-specific packages that won't
> work on OS X (perl -> Glibc -> Linux-Headers). There doesn't seem to be
> a clear idea as to if rootless should be using the system-provided
> programs/libraries or the gobo programs/libraries, and how to seemlessly
> implement one or the other.
>
OS X has perl, and its own libc.  It also has python, cups, ssh, and a
lot of other stuff.  I don't think Rootless should try to override any
of it.

> This makes it difficult on the mac because gobo seems to rely on
> gnu-based utilities that aren't compatible with the bsd core of OS X.
> Then, there are some packages, like Glibc which explicitly depend on
> linux-specific programs (Linux-Headers) in order to work.
>
DON'T BUILD GLIBC FOR OS X.  It has its own libc and doesn't need/want glibc.

Installing CoreUtils and having it in the path before the native utils
solves that problem.  Unfortunately, it causes another.  CoreUtils's
and bsd's uname are not compatible.  This causes problems with
configure scripts and causes most things not to build.  Removing
CoreUtils uname solves that but isn't very clean.  There are probably
more gotcha's along those lines.

> Also, can Compile and InstallPackage handle installing packages for a
> different architecture and/or base operating system? I'd be happy to
> provide OS X packages once we get rootless working :)
>

That is just a matter of pointing to different package stores in
GetAvailable.conf.

Do you know why fink has different package stores for each 10.x
release?  Are we going to need to do the same thing?  What about
Intel/PPC?  I have an OS X machine again (PPC) so I can do
testing/mentoring to anyone willing to tackle this.  Sorry I can't do
more but I'd rather focus my (limited) time on the main (x86) distro.

-- 
Carlo J. Calica