Re: ./configure in debian/rules
On Thu, 09 Mar 2006, Hendrik Sattler wrote:
> > `--host=HOST-TYPE'
> > the type of system on which the package will run. By default it
> > is the same as the build machine. Specifying it enables the
> > cross-compilation mode.
>
> That's insane. However, it doen't say anything about the sitution of --build
Actually, what it was before was completely and utterly broken (not
necessarily in the design, for all I know it was an implementation snafu.
All I know is that cross-compiling with old autoconf is just plain
impossible unless you do practice dark arts).
Now you have this:
HOST: where you are doing the compilation
BUILD: where the code being built will run
TARGET: where code that the code being built will generate when run on a
BUILD box, will run (for cross-compiling cross-compilers and
toolchains, rarely used)
TARGET defaults to BUILD
BUILD defaults to HOST
HOST defaults to whatever (nothing, I think).
Host and Build meant the opposite on autoconf 2.13/automake1.4. IMHO the
new definitions are much better.
The following is for autoconf 2.5* and newer:
Specify HOST (through --host), and you immediately enter cross-compiling
mode. Specifiying --host in a Debian maintainer package build when not
crosscompiling is a bug, so don't do it.
You must *always* specify BUILD (through --build) when building a Debian
package, it is required by Debian policy, and it MUST be set to the output
of dpkg-architecture -qDEB_BUILD_GNU_TYPE unless overriden.
If you need to specify TARGET then you'd rather better know more than I do
about crosscompiling and how to make that compliant to Debian policy.
> and --host are used and both contain the same value.
If both build and host have the same value, you are cross-compiling to the
build architecture, on a host of the same architecture.
This *does* use different compilers for generating production code and
build-tools code, which might be a feature, for all I know. I'd ask all of
the porters if that is useful before touching it.
> Work-around for the compiler could be to ship with symbolic links, e.g.
> gcc -> gcc-4.0 -> i686-linux-gcc-4.0
Work around for what? Not for non-policy compliant, buggy packages, I
presume. Are users somehow being hit by this?
Or do you want to do this to avoid an ifeq..endif block in debian/rules
files that are currently required to detect if --host should be issued to
configure ?
--
"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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