Re: [Gnustep-cvs] r31321 - in /tools/make/trunk: ChangeLog GNUstep.conf.in configure configure.ac

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi
> Well then, the packagers come close to being in my category (4) then ... 
> GNUstep should have a native setup for them so that the packages they produce 
> will just work for the end users.
> Actually, I don't think that's ideal either ... we should assist packagers to 
> produce better packages ... and contribute filesystem layout configurations for 
> their systems to gnustep-make, and contribute installation scripts to the 
> packages.
> It's not good for GNUstep if packagers produce packages which install and then 
> don't work.
>    
to be honest, if a packager produces a package that doesn't work, the 
distribution the works with has a Q&A problem...
> That's not really what I meant ... I was thinking of 
> alternative/unofficial distributions of GNUstep. eg. if Riccardo 
> wanted to produce a whole GNUstep environment to be installed on top 
> of an Ubuntu system *instead* of the packages which come with Ubuntu 
> ... he might want to do that because he hates the Debian insistence on 
> FHS and would like Ubuntu users to have a whole integrated system 
> using an apple layout.
Well, that is what I do on my debian computer: I installed gnustep so 
that it  pulled in all dependencies, then I removed the gnustep packages 
and built everything by source.
By using this trick, an clean installation was extremely simple and 
required no configure option at all (except that I used --prefix=/ but 
that is really optional and as David writes, a debatable choice on 
system with several filesystems mounted).
Everything worked the first time. The only single thing I really had to 
do was shoucing GNUstep.sh and given that I really do wonder about 
people complaining about gnusteps' problems. It is not that other 
complex software packages are easier at all!
> > Maybe by adding this to the end of -make's install?
> >
> > echo source ${GNUSTEP_MAKEFILES}/GNUstep.sh>>  /etc/profile
> > echo source ${GNUSTEP_MAKEFILES}/GNUstep.csh>>  /etc/csh.cshrc
> >      
> Sure, we've discussed that kind of thing before and there was a strong argument 
> that editing such files is intrusive, and system dependent since the 
> appropriate files vary, and generally somewhat complex (you need to remove old 
> edits before making a new one) and error-prone.  I'm sure we could do it, but 
> using native conventions seems simpler so far.
>
>    
I'd prefer not. In the past I had experienced troubles iwth some 
programs (for example Java applications) when the gnustep env. was set 
up. I still source GNUstep.sh manually after 10 years...
> > Even a message at the end of installing -make telling users that they have to 
> > add this line to their .profile would help people compiling from source.
> >      
> Yes, I'm all for that, but I think there are plenty of people who just wouldn't 
> read/notice it :-(
>
>    
well, I think makefiles should all spit out that error, since this is 
the first problem somebody which is building from source experiences. 
Some makefiles just complain about "config.make not present". Once 
sourced a successful make is possible and the application will run fine.
> I think on windows we already set the filesystem layout and set 
> everything up for the user in the package installer. IIRC the problem 
> there was they were not using the msys shell provided in the GNUstep 
> package so things were totally broken for them. I'm not sure what we 
> can do about that.
On windows if you use the "msys.bat" shell provided (which used to have 
a nice GNUstep icon, btw) everything is sourced for you and works out of 
the box, this is why I had trouble understanding what went wrong to the 
user who reported here.

Riccardo