Re: config.sub/guess and --host/--build

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Fri, 11 Oct 2002, Ross Burton wrote:
> I am creating packages for Debian. The current practise at the moment if
> a package uses autoconf is to replace the config.sub and config.guess

The current practice for Debian is in the autotools-dev package's README,
and believe it or not, it changed a bit :)

> files in upstream with the latest version (which is available through
> the autotools-dev package) before building.  Also, all Debian systems
> (running on 11 architectures) know what they are, so most packages also
> call configure with --host and --build arguments.

Well, now I suggest in autotools-dev that we rm -f the stuff upstream
includes, and symlink that to the ones provided by autotools-dev.  Upstream
rarely updates config.sub/guess enough anyway.  I suggest we notify them
once, and then leave it at their discretion (and don't use their supplied
config.sub/.guess anymore).

> So, does using --host and --build mean that config.sub and config.guess
> will never be used? From a brief look at configure this appears to be

config.sub always get called.

> the case, but is it a behaviour I can depend on to remain true in the
> future?  Being able to ditch the config.sub and config.guess update mess
> would make things a lot easier...

Read about the symlink method in the new autotools-dev package, and get the
cyrus21-imapd package for an example of it in action (both from Debian
unstable)...  You never have to think about config.sub/.guess again.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh