[Gnucap-devel] Gnucap docs build failure on FC5 (and other places)

[Stuart Brorson]

Al, group,

I am getting the next spin of the gEDA CD ready for release.  On FC5 I
have a problem:  If dvipdfm is installed, but Latex is not, I get this
error message:

--------------- <error spew> --------------
Making all in man

make[2]: Entering directory 
`/home/sdb/geda-sources-20060729/gnucap/gnucap-2006-07-08/man'WARNING:  latex 
was not found on your system but
          gnucap-man.dvi is out of date and needs to be
          rebuilt from the LaTeX .tex files. Changes to
          the .tex files will be ignored.
/usr/bin/dvipdfm gnucap-man

gnucap-man.dvi -> gnucap-man.pdf

dvi_init:  Specified DVI file doesn't exist

Output file removed.
make[2]: *** [gnucap-man.pdf] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory 
`/home/sdb/geda-sources-20060729/gnucap/gnucap-2006-07-08/man'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory 
`/home/sdb/geda-sources-20060729/gnucap/gnucap-2006-07-08'
make: *** [all] Error 2
--------------- </error spew> --------------


Here's the spew from configure:

--------------- <configure spew> --------------
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/geda
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking whether to enable maintainer-specific portions of Makefiles... no
checking if debug code should be compiled in... no
checking for g++... g++
checking for C++ compiler default output file name... a.out
checking whether the C++ compiler works... yes
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of executables...
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C++ compiler... yes
checking whether g++ accepts -g... yes
checking for style of include used by make... GNU
checking dependency style of g++... none
checking for dvipdfm... /usr/bin/dvipdfm
checking for hacha... notfound
checking for hevea... notfound
checking for latex... notfound
checking for main in -ltermcap... yes

(etc.)
--------------- <configure spew> --------------


Anyway, IMO we shouldn't require users to build .pdf files in their
distributions.  Pdfs should just come with the distribution.  IMO a
.pdf file is a "make dist" target, requiring the developer to have the
right tools installed, not the user.

The reason I am bleating like this is that I want to modify the gnucap
automake stuff so that the .pdfs are "make dist" targets, and the
distributions have .pdfs (any anything generated from Latex) already
built in.   That way I can circumvent all user config problems when
they try to build the gEDA Suite.

I am not an autoconf/automake expert, but will happily submit
patches acheiving this.  But I was wondering if any of the development
gurus out there had some example code which implemented this scheme?
I looked at PCB, which does this, but I was flummoxed by its
complexity.  Therefore, if somebody could point to a different
open-source program using the GNU automake stuff which cleanly ships
.pdfs in the distro tarball, I would very much appreciate it.
Alternately, if the PCB devlopers could explain enough of their scheme
so that I could copy it, I would like that too.  Any and all pointers
appreciated!

Thanks,

Stuart