Re: LYNX-DEV BSD makefile support 5

[Bela Lubkin]

Michael Sokolov wrote:

>    What do you mean by a "proper" executable? One that doesn't produce a
> "Segmentation fault" message when run, or one that uses all capabilities of
> the target OS? If you read my last message carefully enough, you'll see
> that Lynx compiled using the old, (IMHO) broken BSDI target doesn't use
> some of the available capabilities, while one compiled using my 4.4BSD
> target does.

Then tell the autoconfig people -- they read this list -- what further
options should be specified for "pure BSD", and how to check whether to
specify them.

>    But really I think it was a mistake for me to mention BSD at all... Now
> the issue is not BSD purity, but the support for the traditional Makefile
> in the first place, whether BSD or not. I know that many people would
> appreciate the autoconfigure mechanism, but just as many would be
> disappointed by the loss of the traditional Makefile. Please understand

*You* please understand.  The output of the "configure" script is a
makefile.  Makefile is not being taken away, it is being improved.

>    Let's face it. A person who knows everything about his OS, no matter
> what that OS is, knows EXACTLY what compilation options to use. Such a

Such a person only knows exactly what compiler options produce the best
output.  Such a person cannot, without exhaustive analysis of the
program to be compiled, know which of the PROGRAM'S OWN OPTIONS should
be set.  One of the primary purposes of the configure script is to
determine the right system-specific settings of those internal options.

>    Another issue is that the Makefile produced by the autoconfigure script
> still has targets for different OSes. I have seen targets for BSDI,
> FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD, but not for 4.4 BSD UNIX. If you are such a
> supporter of the authoconfigure mechanism, then please tell me how do I go
> about compiling Lynx under the plain 4.4 BSD UNIX using your magic script.

You are misinterpreting a work-in-progress.

There is only one interesting target in the makefile produced by
configure.  That is the target called "generic".  Run:

  ./configure; make -f makefile generic

The other targets you see simply represent systems which have not yet
been fully integrated into the autoconfiguration mechanism.  Those
targets will disappear.

If configure does not produce a correct makefile for your system, the
correct way to fix that problem is to tell the list what it does wrong.
It will be fixed.  A later version of Lynx's configure will output a
correct makefile.  This won't happen if you refuse to tell the list what
it does wrong.  "I want to use the original Makefile" is an
uninteresting and unhelpful contribution to the development process.

>    Bela Lubkin <address@hidden> writes:
> >"pure BSD" won't boot on your system or much of anything else.  By the
> >time it's running well enough to do things like compile Lynx, you're
> >going to have made a large number of changes to make it work.
>    Not completely true. If you get a complete distribution, rather than a
> "lite" one (which I think I'll manage to do), you can compile it without
> any trouble by running "make build" in /usr/src and building the kernel
> with config(8). Yes, I know that binary distributions are made only for
> HP300/9000, SPARC (limited support), and DECstation, but not for i386.
> However, the i386 architecture IS supported in the source. I guess I would
> have to install FreeBSD temporarily first to build the initial 4.4BSD
> system.
>    As for the changes I'll have to make in the process, they won't exceed a
> couple dozen lines in a system that weighs several hundred meg. The changes
> introduced in FreeBSD or NetBSD are at least two orders of magnitude
> greater.

Look, get back to me (off the lynx-dev list) when you have finished
installing "pure" 4.4BSD on your x86 machine.  You're going to find that
it takes a lot more change than you think, and that the resulting system
is not usable because there is no software for it.  The exception will
be the (growing number of) packages that come with a configure script
smart enough to figure out the quirks of your particular system, even
though in most cases it will never have been tested against "pure
4.4BSD".

Idealism won't boot a computer.

>Bela<
;
; To UNSUBSCRIBE:  Send a mail message to address@hidden
;                  with "unsubscribe lynx-dev" (without the
;                  quotation marks) on a line by itself.
;