Re: autotools during build
Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 12, 2005 at 10:15:41AM +0200, Bas Wijnen wrote:
> If you rerun autoconf/automake/libtool at package build-time, when you don't
> need to, what you get are large diffs against upstream every time a new
> version of the autotools becomes available. Aside from wasting (a little)
> space in the archive, that makes it harder for NMUers or passing developers
> to see what's going on in your package.
>
> The autotools-dev README.Debian is a good guide to these issues.
>From autotools-dev Readme.Debian:
"You have two good choices, and one bad choice for packaging upstream
source which uses automake and autoconf and contains generated files:
1. Tolerate the big diff size, and run the autotools stuff before you
create the debian source package. This is what I usually do.
2. Patch the autotools files (*.in, *.am) at build time, make sure all
the build dependencies are 100% correct (hint: conflicting with
autoconf2.13 is *always* a good idea if you're not using autoconf 2.13
and automake 1.4). This means that the autobuilders will have to rerun
the entire thing, and so will the users, etc.
When you're doing a full dpatch-based packaging, this choice makes
sense.
3. Live with whatever crap upstream used. You do *not* have this choice
if libtool is being used, BTW. And it is a bad choice IMHO, I'm yet to
see any distribution with better autoconf, automake, libtool and gettext
packages than Debian (and I do have a lot of experience on this)."
Most people proposed to use the 3. choice so far. According to above
document this is not a very good solution. That's a little strange,
isn't it?
Bye
Armin
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