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Re: developers' kit



Hi Drew,

M. Drew Streib writes:
> When talking to developers now, and reaching beyond those that might
> work directly on the spec/tests/impl and are simply interested in
> making lsb packages of their work, I find it difficult to hand them
> something that they can make use of. I realize that it is still very
> early for this type of participation, but I think you'll find a lot
> more developers willing to work with alpha/beta quality development
> tools than you might think.

I agree - I've had a couple of people say they'd like to build LSB
compliant versions of their applications. However at the moment its a
pretty difficult thing to do completely properly.

> Instructions might include:
> 
> * Installing the rpm/deb on their system
> * export CC='cc-lsb'
> * Make the application. (I'm guessing that cc-lsb will default to
>   headers in /usr/include/lsb or equivalent.)

It will need to include a special set of include files and link
against a special set of libraries (an LSB compliant run-time library
isn't necessary compliant for linking LSB compliant applications
against).

I'm not sure yet what the best way is to stop clever autoconf scripts
from finding headers and libraries that they shouldn't. A chroot area
would be safest, but the hassle of installing necessary build tools
into may be too much. Perhaps some modifications to gcc/binutils to
complain when files outside a certain area are used?

> * Package using rpm. (Should we provide an rpm-lsb which is the right
>   version of rpm?)

Also nice, but not necessary, would be a version of rpm which warned
when you're using features that you're not meant to (eg trigger
scripts). A version of rpm which supports v3 format packages that will
install simultaneously on rpm v4 systems will also be needed.

> I think that the overall process isn't _that_ hard, but those not
> totally familiar with the pieces of lsb may find difficulty unless this
> is documented well. Also, I'm pretty sure we don't have that rpm/deb
> I'm speaking of.

Appendix B of the spec has some of this information, but a more
detailed guide would be very useful.

http://www.linuxbase.org/spec/gLSB/gLSB/app-b.html

> 1) Does this type of kit seem appropriate eventually?

Yes.

> 2) Could we build such a thing soon, or is it too early? (I think that
>    this is a pretty important step to getting feedback on a lot of things,
>    so I'm voting for earlier rather than later with this.)

Yes. And we need it to build the binary versions of the test suites.

> 3) If we built an alpha version of this soon, would it be at all useful,
>    or would it be so alpha that a final version would differ greatly?
>    (Even if the process is right, that will offer a significant help
>    in educating people to building lsb apps.)

It will be useful and we'll want at least a few iterations to improve
the process.

> 4) Is my general bullet outline of the process even close to correct?

Looks good to me. There may be more test programs to run over the
produced binary. They may also have to work out various init script
and FHS issues.

Regards,

Chris.
-- 
yeohc@au1.ibm.com
IBM OzLabs Linux Development Group
Canberra, Australia



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