Re: Help compiling 4.3.0 for 3.1 stable

[Robin Whittle <rw@firstpr.com.au>]

Thanks very much Aaron for your help.  For the benefit of newbies with
similar questions, and without wanting to continue discussion on this
list, here is what I did.

BTW, Google has a new code search service:

  http://www.google.com/codesearch/advanced_code_search


> You will almost certainly need to install a number of additional
> packages;
> 
>     apt-get build-dep xfree86
> 
> should take care of that step.

Indeed - 30 packages which I won't list here.

As you suggested, I downloaded the .dsc file and used dpkg-source:

In a directory "zz/" with:

   xfree86_4.3.0.dfsg.1.orig.tar.gz
   xfree86_4.3.0.dfsg.1-14sarge1.diff.gz
   xfree86_4.3.0.dfsg.1-14sarge1.dsc

I ran:

  dpkg-source -x xfree86_4.3.0.dfsg.1-14sarge1.dsc

This gave me:

  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/
  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/xfree86-4.3.0.tar.gz
  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/debian/
  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/debian/local/
  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/debian/patches/
  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/debian/po/
  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/debian/scripts/
  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/debian/README
  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/debian/rules          << Executable
  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/debian/... and many more files

Then from zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/:

  debian/rules unpacked

created:

  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/stampdir/
  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/stampdir/log/
  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/stampdir/sources/
  zz/XF-comp/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/build-tree/
  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/build-tree/xc/
  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/build-tree/xc/config/
  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/build-tree/xc/doc/  etc. - the source tree

Now:

  debian/rules setup

works like a charm.  It applies about 240 patches from debian/patches.

Being a newbie, I didn't know what to do next, so I looked at
debian/rules to find a target which would compile the whole thing.  I
chose "build-arch-only" without too much thought.

  debian/rules build-arch-only

After 1.5 hours, I had a largish (22 Megs) XFree86 server binary (I
guess it compiled in all the drivers rather than making them modules) in:

  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/build-tree/xc/programs/Xserver/

which I could copy to /usr/X11R6/bin/ in place of the old 1.7 Meg
version.  This runs fine.  There was also a very large XFree86 in
another tree under:

  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/build-tree/xc-xserver-xfree86-dbg/

which I guess is full of debugging information.

Googling reveals that this "build-arch-only" target is not favoured:

  http://lists.debian.org/debian-x/2006/04/msg00064.html

and that most people use dpkg-buildpackage instead.

I found that I could change some code in:

 zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/build-tree/xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/common/xf86Xinput.c

and recompile the server only from:

  zz/xfree86-4.3.0.dfsg.1/build-tree/xc/programs/Xserver/

with:

  make Makefile
  make Makefiles
  make includes
  make depend
  make

The resulting XFree86 server in that directory embodied my changes.

Other newbies might pursue more conventional approaches to building via:

  man dpkg-buildpackage
  http://people.debian.org/~mpalmer/debian-mentors_FAQ.html
  http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-debpkg.html
  http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-source.html#s-debianrules

   - Robin    http://www.firstpr.com.au