Re: ./configure in debian/rules

[Thomas Bushnell BSG <tb@becket.net>]

Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> writes:

> On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 11:15:46PM +0100, Pjotr Kourzanov wrote:
>> Steve Langasek wrote:
>> >Well, you shouldn't pass --host *except* when cross-compiling; the
>> >autotools-dev package shows how to do this.  But at least --build is always
>> >a sane thing to specify, and usually saves you from upstreams optimizing 
>> >for
>> >the wrong architecture based on config.guess...
>
>> Why not?
>
> Because passing --host signals that you're cross-compiling, and you are
> obviously not cross-compiling.

I'm one of the people who actually helped design the GNU Makefile and
configure standards, and --host does not "signal that you're
cross-compiling."  What signals that you are cross-compiling is a
disagreement between --host and --build.

It was the explicit intention that you could configure a whole bunch
of packages with one set of options; providing an option which is
equivalent to what config.guess (etc) would guess and take does not
pass a "signal" that you are cross-compiling.

Thomas