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Re: [RFC] GNU autoconf and dpkg-architecture



On Sat, Feb 02, 2002 at 10:06:21PM -0200, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> On Sat, 02 Feb 2002, Steve M. Robbins wrote:
> > There appears to be a disconnect between autoconf and Debian on this,
> > though.  The autoconf docs say (about specifying the system type):
> 
> Nah, that is just braindamage in dpkg-architecture. It really should return
> i386-pc-linux-gnu for DEB_*_GNU_TYPE in i386, since THAT is the full GNU
> type. See #115655

Yes, I apologize for getting this wrong in the first place.
 
> Anyway, until dpkg-architecture is fixed, config.sub is needed so as to
> expand the system type to its canonical version.

I have an update plan for this.  We first have to fix all packages relying
on the uncanonicalized name that is currently used to allow for both, the
old and the new names.  This is a good idea anyway (like with autoconf,
where you use "*-linux*)" to match).

Then we can fix dpkg-architecture, and get over it.

This will require
1. finding out which packages needs to be fixed
2. working out some examples how to fix it
3. send bug reports for all packages
4. wait
5. change dpkg-architecture
6. change policy

Please help with this.  I am swamped in work, and smaller issues like I
often have to drop or stall for a while.

> >     Note that we don't want to use arch-debian-linux to apply to the
> >     rule architecture-vendor-os since this would make our programs
> >     incompatible with other Linux distributions. We also don't use
> >     something like arch-unknown-linux, since the unknown does not look
> >     very good.
> 
> This is outdated stuff in policy which needs to be fixed -- because it is
> false.  We DO use arch-unknown-linux-gnu, for many archs, because THAT is
> their canonical GNU architecture name. Not returning it in dpkg-achitecture
> "because it is prettier" seems rather... shallow IMHO :)

Note that I was still quite inexperienced when I did this, and looked for a
solution that requires as little changes to existing stuff at that time. 
Most of the braindamage in dpkg-architecture is inherited, it was never
meant as the ultimate solution, but as an interim helper to make Debian GNU/Hurd 
possible at all at the source level.  (At the binary archive level, there is
still sever breakage in the archive, like binary all packages that are linux
specific).

The intention of dpkg-architecture was always to introduce the canonical GNU
names into the Debian sources as primary architecture name.  Every effort to
make this move complete is highly appreciated.

I am not so sure about specifying --build and --host unconditionally, but
you gave good arguments and I am not aware of a situation were it would
reasonably fail.

> > Sending email to d-d-announce is a fine idea.  [I personally think
> 
> I will do so. I am wating for a few more replies to this thread, first.
> Someone might come up with stuff I really should be aware of before sending
> such an announcement...

Thanks for taking the initiative.  I would be very delighted to see the
proper canonicalized GNU names provided by dpkg-architecture. 

Thanks,
Marcus 

-- 
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org brinkmd@debian.org
Marcus Brinkmann              GNU    http://www.gnu.org    marcus@gnu.org
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de



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