Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 20:13:49 -0500 (EST) From: Tom Huppi <thuppi@huppi.com> To: Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> Cc: "Freebsd-Newbies@Freebsd. Org" <freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: automake, autoconf compiling Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.58.0501131946260.67347@nuumen.pair.com> In-Reply-To: <20050113214735.GA1258@gothmog.gr> References: <20050113204932.2BAD643D54@mx1.FreeBSD.org> <20050113214735.GA1258@gothmog.gr>
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On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: <snip> > 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. >
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