Re: ./configure in debian/rules
On Fri, 24 Feb 2006, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> If config.sub is not needed, I am almost sure that --host is not needed. Nor
> is --build, or --target. They are not supposed to be able to work without
> config.sub to canonize them.
Very well, I have verified this now to be _wrong_.
Autoconf always support cross-compiling, therefore it always has use for
--host, --build and --target.
However, unless AC_CANONICAL_* is used, you'd better supply the full,
canonized arch string or things like the cross-compiler name and libs will
be very wrong indeed.
Fortunately, nowadays dpkg-architecture is not hideously broken anymore and
we get the proper canonical arch name from DEB_HOST_GNU_TYPE and
DEB_BUILD_GNU_TYPE, so that's suitable to be directly fed to configure even
without AC_CANONICAL_*.
If a package does NOT call AC_CANONICAL_* (directly or indirectly. libtool
always call this, for example), I suppose not setting --host and --build
shouldn't be a problem. But that's because we don't take cross-compiling
seriously in Debian for most packages. If we start doing so, that will
change.
Please just add the recommended --host and --build makefile snippet and feed
that to configure in *all* packages. It is better in the long run, and for
many packages that is enough to have it cross-compile correctly.
--
"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
Henrique Holschuh
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