Peter:
I think the idea here is the make the S/W easier to access and use,
thus opening up the user base to become hopefully larger, maybe
exponentially larger. Keep in mind I and one of the biggest supporters
or fans of GNU Freeware, and conversely one of the biggest haters of
Microsoft. To destroy MS you must make your tools easier to access
and use, to the point of being usable by the average user. BTW my
skills are well beyond average and if I cannot succeed here a large number
of even knowledgeable users will not succeed here.
Thomas Dineen
Peter A. Friend wrote:
On Dec 4, 2007, at 11:00 AM, Thomas Dineen wrote:
By the way don't bother flaming back at me I am way beyond
this and thus impervious! Hopefully by fixing the issues documented
below you will open up the GCC software to be usable by a larger
audience of users.
Well, if one politely requests help it generally will not result in
flames.
Issue 1) The configure and build scripts insist (read that fight to the
death) on using the solaris linker (/usr/ccs/bin/ld) despite every
effort to the contrary, and this of course causes errors. The following
were my failed efforts to redirect it to the Gnu Linker (/opt/sfw/
bin/gld):
a) Providing explicit command line direction to configure.
/export/home/tools/gcc/gcc-4.0.4/configure --with-gnu-ld --with-
gnu-as
--with-as=/opt/sfw/bin/as --with-ld=/opt/sfw/bin/ld
b) Provide links in the object directory attempting to redirect it:
ln -s /opt/sfw/bin/gld ld
c) Provide links in the executable directory attempting to redirect it:
ln -s gld ld
d) Reordering the path so that the Gnu Tools would appear first.
e) Removing the Solaris Linker from the path.
Why do you wish to use GNU ld and as? On Solaris systems I have
always used Sun ld and as, and if I recall correctly, the older GCC
documentation would tell you to do that. I don't immediately recall
what the issue was, and I don't know if it's still an issue. If there
is a specific need to use GNU ld and as then perhaps someone else can
chime in on this one.
Issue 4) What's In A Name? Or what the hell should we name it?
When I down load and install various releases of GNU Bintools a
tool like GNU Make is sometimes called gmake and sometimes called
make. This causes confusion and thus errors in that the Gcc build
scripts
use make. I would suggest standardizing on the names to prevent
confusion.
To this end I would suggest that GNU Make always, always, always be
called gmake and when you want to use GNU Make in your project that
you type gmake.
I don't see how this is a GNU bug, it's more of a development
environment issue. When we install GNU make we install it as "make"
and also provide a hard link as "gmake". If it was only installed as
gmake then people would have to alter all of their stuff (something
they may not have access to do) to call gmake.
For my Solaris environment I have the GNU tools in my path first,
followed by /usr/ccs/bin. This makes sure that GNU versions of m4,
grep, sed and make are used, and Sun versions of as and ld are used.
Issue 5) The build process is way to complicated for the average user
to negotiate successfully. The user interface should be simplified
to the
following for a native compiler:
./configure
gmake
gmake install
The build procedure for GCC can be cumbersome. There are a lot of
options, a lot of systems to support, and a lot of ways for the
procedure to break. This in itself is an argument against average
users trying to attempt builds themselves.
Cheers,
Peter
