From owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 14 01:13:50 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2BA6B16A4CF for ; Fri, 14 Jan 2005 01:13:50 +0000 (GMT) Received: from nuumen.pair.com (nuumen.pair.com [209.68.1.119]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 9C36143D31 for ; Fri, 14 Jan 2005 01:13:49 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from thuppi@nuumen.pair.com) Received: (qmail 82619 invoked by uid 55300); 14 Jan 2005 01:13:49 -0000 Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 20:13:49 -0500 (EST) From: Tom Huppi X-X-Sender: thuppi@nuumen.pair.com To: Giorgos Keramidas In-Reply-To: <20050113214735.GA1258@gothmog.gr> Message-ID: References: <20050113204932.2BAD643D54@mx1.FreeBSD.org> <20050113214735.GA1258@gothmog.gr> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII cc: Keith Bottner cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org cc: "Freebsd-Newbies@Freebsd. Org" Subject: Re: automake, autoconf compiling X-BeenThere: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Gathering place for new users List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 01:13:50 -0000 On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: > I use autoconf/automake and libtool daily at work[1]. > > The programs I write have to run on at least 3 different operating > systems (FreeBSD, Linux and Solaris) without the need for constant > manual tweaking of the source. At work (former), I was responsible for code which was to *compile* on 6 or 7 different platforms. I choose one (often my FreeBSD workstation) upon which to execute the auto-tools and didn't bother with most of the others though I kept a compatible set of these tools on Linux and Solaris for convenience. Indeed, the whole paradigm behind these tools is that they should _not_ be needed on the target platform. 'autoconf' goes to great pains to generate platform independent Bourne shell configure script for a very good reason! Unfortunately too many people either misunderstand the paradigm and/or or mis-use the tools and I suspect that this is a good portion of the reason why the FreeBSD ports infrastructure needs to play so many silly games with the auto-tools. Properly speaking, the target platform shouldn't need them at all, but I'm sure there are details of certain source distributions which I am not aware of. Thanks, - Tom > The best way to do that is to use the same version of autotools on all > those platforms. So, I install the latest possible versions of these > tools with --prefix=/opt/autotools on all the machines I have to use, > and stop worrying about all the details. > > When I have to use the tools, I add /opt/autotools/bin at the beginning > of my PATH. When I don't need them, I remove /opt/autotools/bin from my > path. > > This has worked wonders so far. > > - Giorgos > > > > [1] The operative keyword here is "at work". I don't use autoconf and > friends for programs I write on my own. I prefer bsd.*.mk for that. >