bug#13912: Feedback on coreutils 8.13

[Ellis N. Thomas]

        Notes on installation of coreutils 8.13

To: <address@hidden>

1. Introduction

        The purpose of this feedback is to notify some difficulties encountered
with coreutils.  As explained below, the release used was NOT the  
latest, so it
is quite likely that these matters have been previously addressed.  On  
the other
hand, it is possible that installation has not been attempted for this  
actual
Unix version.

        In trying to obtain the latest Ada compiler from Gnu, there had
previously been some initial problems concerning missing facilities in  
the Unix
version on this iMac.  Running Mac OS X:

System Version: Mac OS X 10.5.8 (9L30)
Kernel Version: Darwin 9.8.0
>uname -mpv
Darwin Kernel Version 9.8.0: Wed Jul 15 16:55:01 PDT 2009;  
root:xnu-1228.15.4~1/RELEASE_I386 i386 i386

        The download of gcc-4.7.2 made in Feb-2013 included a file MD5SUMS to
verify the correct transfer of the files.  However, the suggested  
usage of
md5sum failed as this command was not available!  Investigation on the  
Gnu
website showed that this is available in coreutils, but there seemed  
to be no
way of downloading this alone, so downloaded version 8.21 from the ftp  
area
(ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/).  However, these are xz versions  
and there
seems to be no support for that format on this machine.  The latest gz  
was 8.13
from Sep 2011, so also downloaded version 8.13, and proceeded trying  
to install this.

        This feedback concerns the following points.

  - Incomplete information provided in the INSTALL plus README files

  - Some problems with configure

  - An error reported by make check.

  - No test failure as reported in README for Mac OS X 10.5.1 (Darwin  
9.1).

        The information is supplied in the hope that it might be useful to
developers.


2. Information in the INSTALL plus README files

        Referred to coreutils-8.13/INSTALL and coreutils-8.13/README.  Because
only md5sum was required, tried to establish how to obtain this alone.

        In the INSTALL it says:

**** From INSTALL ****
   Some packages pay attention to `--enable-FEATURE' options to
`configure', where FEATURE indicates an optional part of the package.
They may also pay attention to `--with-PACKAGE' options
**** End from INSTALL ****

and it also says:

**** From INSTALL ****
The `README' should mention any `--enable-' and `--with-' options that  
the
package recognizes.
**** End from INSTALL ****

        However, the README does NOT clarify this.

        From the configure --help, it was established that there is also
a --without-PACKAGE option.

        Initially tried ./configure --enable-md5sum but this gave

configure: WARNING: unrecognized options: --enable-md5sum

and proceeded anyway.

        When `make' was run, many errors were reported, concerning expr.c (see
next section).  Since these concern the expr command which was not  
really
needed, tried repeating ./configure using  --without-PACKAGE
./configure --without-expr

Ran, but gave:

configure: WARNING: unrecognized options: --without-expr

        It would help if the README covered the options that actually apply
(see also next section).


3. Some problems with configure

        Retried make, redirecting the output to a log file.  The errors in expr
were more extensive than realised before.  The first error is
expr.c:54:18: error: gmp.h: No such file or directory

        It seems that configure has made an incorrect decision about the
availability of gmp, which is not available (but is placed ready to be  
installed
along with the gcc sources. It had previously been established that it  
was a
Prerequisite).

        Noted that config.status has
D["HAVE_GMP"]=" 1"
and the expr.c source tests this.  It seems that configure has
incorrectly decided that gmp is available, and expr.c fails to find  
the header,
and all other errors arise from this.

	Since the expr.c source allowed for the test failing, it seemed  
possible
to proceed without gmp.  So config.status was modified so that
D["HAVE_GMP"]=" 0"

        Reran make, redirecting the output to a log file.  This ran OK.

        It was only later that it was realised that configure --help included:

**** From --help ****
  --without-gmp           do not use the GNU MP library for arbitrary
                          precision calculation (default: use it if  
available)
**** End from --help ****


        The optional nature of gmp and this option ought to be included in the
README.  However, the decision made by configure "use it if available"  
still
seems incorrect.


4. An error reported by make check.

        Tried `make check'.  Ran to completion, recording one failure
FAIL: install/install-C
There was also a log in tests/test-suite.log, but it seemed to be  
removed later
by make clean.

        The `make installcheck' has not been done.  If it is of help to you,
then this can be done, or partially done, to identify the exact failure.


5. Test failure reported in README

        There is a test failure in 'make check' reported in README concerning
Mac OS X 10.5.1 (Darwin 9.1).  This concerns ACL support, and suggests  
using
--disable-acl.

        This machine has Mac OS X 10.5.8 (Darwin 9.8.0).  The 'make check' was
performed without having done --disable-acl, but the "numerous  
failures" stated
did not arise, although there was one error (see previous section).   
The tests
were done as a normal user (not root), but having the privilege to use  
sudo (not
used at this point).

        The different effect for this Mac version might or might not be of
relevance to Gnu developers!


6. Summary

	This report applies to an old version of coreutils, 8.13.  The  
following
points were observed - more details above.

  - Incomplete information provided in the INSTALL plus README files

  - Some problems with configure

  - An error reported by make check.

  - No test failure as reported in README for Mac OS X 10.5.1 (Darwin  
9.1).

        In addition, the reason for using coreutils 8.1, was that version 8.21
had only are xz versions of the files and there seems to be no support  
for that
format on this machine.  It would help if the Gnu website had further
information about handling xz, or continued to support gz.  For  
example, when
gcc was downloaded as gcc-4.7.2, this still provided gz versions.

        Further, it would help if it was possible to select specific parts of
coreutils, and the README described how to do this.  On an existing  
Unix system,
like Darwin, many of these programs are already available

        If extra information about the matters reported above would be of value
please contact:
        address@hidden

Ellis N. Thomas/ 9-Mar-2013