Re: Host settings for GNU in configure*?

[Samuel Thibault]

Svante Signell, le Thu 25 Aug 2011 14:50:33 +0200, a écrit :
> On Thu, 2011-08-25 at 11:01 +0200, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> > Svante Signell, le Thu 25 Aug 2011 10:58:43 +0200, a écrit :
> > > On Thu, 2011-08-25 at 10:48 +0200, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> > > > Svante Signell, le Thu 25 Aug 2011 10:20:44 +0200, a écrit :
> > > 
> > > > > 1) Where to find the specification resulting in i486-pc-gnu?
> > > > 
> > > > I don't understand the question. Why would you want that ?
> > > 
> > > Some packages are configured with i486-pc-gnu,
> > 
> > For instance?
> 
> See Guillems reply.
> I see other examples too where i486-gnu is not forwarded by
> debian/rules: mathgl, nbd. They use dh_auto_configure and in config.log
> --build=i486-gnu is already set as an option to configure. I have not
> yet found out where it is set, though. 

grep -- --build /usr/bin/dh_*

has at least

/usr/bin/dh_make:                        'CROSS= --build $(DEB_BUILD_GNU_TYPE) 
--host $(DEB_HOST_GNU_TYPE)'."\n".

but what is your actual problem with it?

> > > > > A common denominator of $host is
> > > > > 
> > > > > c) *-gnu*
> > > > 
> > > > This one: don't care the actual architecture, don't care the actual
> > > > version of GNU.
> > > 
> > > It is not unique if * means wildcard,
> > 
> > Yes, but that's the best we can do.
> It looks like the triple
> 
> CPU_TYPE-MANUFACTURER-OPERATING_SYSTEM e.g. i686-unknown-gnu 
> 
> is not unique but
> 
> CPU_TYPE-MANUFACTURER-KERNEL-OPERATING_SYSTEM e.g. i686-unknown-hurd-gnu
> 
> would. Or should the kernel be gnumach?

I don't know the historical details, but the way I understand it is that
GNU is GNU, and GNU/Linux came afterwards and used linux-gnu. Simply use
linux* or gnu* and it'll work. The only unfortunate thing is *-gnu*.
linux should probably have never used linux-gnu, but something like
linux_gnu*, to avoid using the separate inside separatees... It's
however usually not a problem, because you have either

*-linux* | *-gnu*)

which is not a problem, or

*-linux*) something

*-gnu*) something else

which actually works (in that order)

Samuel