[gnuspeech-contact] Fwd: Ubuntu & GNUstep

[David Hill]

Hi Xianghang Liu,

I mentioned your problem to a friend who is not on the gnuspeech  
mailing list but who is experienced with GNU/Linux.  I've attached  
his reply.

All good wishes.

david
---------

> > Since the operating system of my computer is Ubuntu

Ubuntu is a carefully-packaged distribution based on Gentoo, and  
intended to
give an easy install to those unable or unwilling to get deeply into the
technical side of configuring the system. As such, it is very similar  
to the
stable-branch Gentoo Linux that I (and all my family) use, so my  
experience
may be relevant.

> > I prefer to work on the GNUstep port.
> > Although I have no experience in Object-C,

Regrettably, I am also inexperienced in Objective-C, and am not a  
GNUstep
user.

> > I downloaded the GNUstep version of the code via svn and tried to
> > compile it under my Ubuntu system.  I just follow the steps as
> > described in INSTALL.GNUstep. But I got some errors:
> > make[1]: Entering directory `/home/xianghang/Projects/trunk/
> > Applications/Monet/Extensions'
> > Making all for library libMonetExtensions...
> >  Compiling file NSPopUpButton-Extensions.m ...
> > In file included from NSPopUpButton-Extensions.m:20:
> > NSPopUpButton-Extensions.h:24: error: expected ‘)’ before ‘NSInteger’
> > NSPopUpButton-Extensions.m:26: error: expected ‘)’ before ‘NSInteger’
> > NSPopUpButton-Extensions.m: In function ‘-[NSPopUpButton
> > (Extensions) selectItemWithTag:]’:
> > NSPopUpButton-Extensions.m:28: warning: passing argument 1 of
> > ‘indexOfItemWithTag:’ makes integer from pointer without a cast
> > make[2]: *** [obj/NSPopUpButton-Extensions.o] Error 1
> > make[1]: *** [libMonetExtensions.all.library.variables] Error 2

I suspect this is all a result of compiling with a different version  
of the
GNU C compiler gcc. Recent versions are much pickier about errors.  
Gentoo
recently moved from 4.1.2 to 4.3.2 in the stable branch, and it was a  
riot.
Some apps (e.g. showimg) which compile perfectly happily under 4.1.2  
*still*
waont compile under 4.3.2. If you compare the gcc version you use  
with that
used by your new member, you will likely find a difference.

Of more concern is the fact that the error may, in fact, be genuine.  
It is
certainly a show-stopper in this compiler version. Without knowing  
the code,
I can scarcely say more. Sometimes when an apparent error of this  
sort is
seen when using a new compiler, I find it helpful to look at the  
preprocessed
code with macro expansion complete (in gcc, add -E to all your usual
switches). I've usually found that if one fixes such a problem to make a
later compiler work, the code remains compatible with earlier compilers.

I try to ward this by turning on just about every warning in sight, and
keeping my compiles warning-free. Counter-intuitively, merely turning
on -Wall does not do this. In the makefile, I typically write:

# Warning flags - the persnickety old curmudgeon version
WARNINGS = -Wall -W -Wcast-align -Wcast-qual  \
           -Wmissing-declarations -Wmissing-prototypes -Wnested- 
externs \
           -Wpointer-arith -Wredundant-decls -Wreturn-type -Wshadow \
           -Wstrict-prototypes -Wswitch -Wunused -Wwrite-strings - 
Winline

and add ${WARNINGS} to CFLAGS. Not all these may be applicable in  
Objective-C,
and others may be worthwhile. Even with this, I still sometimes have  
work to
do on compiler version changes.

> > Then I tried to just compile the Synthesizer application. It seems
> > to be built successfully but when I execute it I got an error
> > "Failed to load Gorm". Since I am not familiar with this project
> > and GNUStep either, I do not know what is the mistake.

With the above errors, he is missing a library or at least a section  
of one.
Probably once the compiler errors are fixed this will vanish.

Hope this is some help,
--