Bug#2502: configure fails if /vmlinuz is missing

[Juergen Menden <menden@informatik.tu-muenchen.de>]

Package: perl
Version: 5.002-5

In fact this report might be for the upstream maintainer... ;-)

The source package didn't configures cleanly on some linux systems if
they are lacking a /vmlinuz file. The symptoms: Configure reports that
nm didn't seem to work right when extracting the symbols from the
shared libs. some Configure output:
   [...]
   Shall I use nm to extract C symbols from the libraries? [y]
   [...]
   Extracting names from the following files for later perusal:

	/lib/libc.so
	/lib/libdl.so.1.7.14
	/lib/libm.so.5.0.5
	[...]

   This may take a while................
   nm didn't seem to work right. Trying ar instead...
   ar: /lib/libc.so is not an archive
   ar didn't seem to work right.
   Maybe this is a Cray...trying bld instead...
   ./Configure: bld: command not found
   ./Configure: bld: command not found
   ar: /usr/lib/libndbm.so is not an archive

This effectively leeds Configure to not finding any symbols in the
standard libraries. The reason for this is in a somewhat obscure test
of a linux system in Configure when deciding if 'nm' needs the -D (?)
option to work correctly with shared libraries:

   : Linux may need the special Dynamic option to nm for shared libraries.
   if test -f /vmlinuz && nm -D $nm_opt $libc > /dev/null 2>&1; then
     [...]

If i create an empty /vmlinuz file configure works right.

Well, this seem's to be somewhat silly test for a linux system to
me. please also note that the architecture and the operating system is
already correctly determined by Configure:
   [...]
   Operating system name? [linux]

   What is your architecture name [m68k-linux]
   [...]
Even the correct architecture is detected (I'm running linux on an
atari kind of computer ;-), so it looks much more reasonable to me to
test for the (already detected) operating system instead of a specific
file in a filesystem.

jjm

--
Juergen Menden                   | Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by me,
tel:    +49 (89) 2051 - 2387     +-----------+ are (usually) not the opinions
e-mail: menden@informatik.tu-muenchen.de     | of anyone else on this planet.

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