Re: Correct arch specs for configure...
On Mar 25, Michael Alan Dorman wrote:
>
> I had always assumed it would be {alpha,i386,m68k}-debian-linux, since
> this more-or-less satisfies the architecture/vendor/os trio (like
> sparc-sun-solaris2, for instance).
>
> However, I note that an awful lot of packages (ok, a few, but it seems
> like a lot) merely specify alpha-linux.
>
For Linux the only "standard" vendor (known by configure) is `unknown'.
That's because vendor does not really matter. RedHat's binutils are
(almost) the same as Debian's are. We don't need to distinguish them.
Otherwise we would run into all sorts of binary incompatibilities:
imagine that RedHat's gcc wants
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/alpha-redhat-linux/2.7.2/cc1, Debian's gcc wants
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/alpha-debian-linux/2.7.2/cc1, and so on... If you get,
say, gcc and binutils from different "vendors", you'll be in trouble.
Well, of course, mixing distributions is not a good idea, but - anyway -
under Linux distinguishing vendors is not necessary and thus should be
avoided. (Correct me if I'm wrong and there actually are
non-vendor-specific programs that need the vendor information during
build phase.)
I think that's why historically the configuration specification has
always been arch-linux.
Kit
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