Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 00:07:32 EST-10EDT,10,-1,0,7200,3,-1,0,7200,3600 Subject: [Ux2bs_Archive] No. 328 ************************************************** Thursday 20 May 2004 Number 328 ************************************************** Subjects for today 1 pkgconfig : Dave Yeo" 2 Re: Re: Plans for UX2BS/UnixOS2... : John Poltorak 3 Re: Re: Plans for UX2BS/UnixOS2... : T.Sikora" 4 Re: Re: Plans for UX2BS/UnixOS2... : T.Sikora" 5 Re: Re: Plans for UX2BS/UnixOS2... : John Poltorak 6 Re: Re: Plans for UX2BS/UnixOS2... : John Poltorak 7 Re: Re: Plans for UX2BS/UnixOS2... : Stefan.Neis at t-online.de 8 Re: Re: Plans for UX2BS/UnixOS2... : Anton Monroe **= Email 1 ==========================** Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 22:25:05 -0800 From: "Dave Yeo" Subject: pkgconfig Hi John. A tool that should be added is pkgconfig. (http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/pkgconfig) Quote pkgconfig is a system for managing library compile/link flags that works with automake and autoconf. It replaces the ubiquitous *-config scripts you may have seen with a single tool. There's nothing desktop-specific or desktop-related about pkg-config, despite it being on freedesktop.org. /Quote I'm seeing more and more apps (mostly X11) that use pkgconfig. It built quite easily here and seems to work fine Dave _______________________________________________ UX2BS mailing list UX2BS at os2ports.com http://os2ports.com/mailman/listinfo/ux2bs **= Email 2 ==========================** Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 12:15:46 +0100 From: John Poltorak Subject: Re: Re: Plans for UX2BS/UnixOS2... On Wed, May 19, 2004 at 11:18:03AM -0500, Anton Monroe wrote: > On Wed, May 19, 2004 at 10:41:32AM +0100, John Poltorak wrote: > > The thing about UX2BS is that it isn't very complicated to install. It > > couldn't be easier. The whole aim of UX2BS is to make the building of apps > > as easy as possible by creating an environment which limits the scope for > > error as much as possible. A fully automated build environment has been my > > aim in this project. That is one of the reasons it has been so painfully > > slow. > > No question, the automated installation is one of the strengths of UX2BS. > In general, I like it. That is the point od UX2BS. It means that anyone should expect to be able to build programs by running 'build program' without having to read lots of different docs which go on about what you need to set up in your environment first. It should just work automagically as it tends to do on Unix. > However, ease is in the perception of the user. Say I'm an outsider who > knows nothing about UX2BS. Well maybe you shouldn't have been using it. It is primarily a prototype build system which, at this point in time is geared towards people familiar with building ported apps on OS/2. Those are the sort of people whose feedback is likely to make it more capable. The normal user isn't likely to be interested in building apps from source - they just want a pre-compiled binary which they can install. > put off trying it until I have more time. My perception would be that > this is "not easy". Have you previously tried building Perl by following the build instructions included? Now *that* is 'not easy', but running 'build perl' is and has been proved to be easy by the numerous people who have done it successfully. > None of this is intended as a criticism of ux2_bootstrap.cmd. It is > well designed for what it is used for-- installing the current version > of a package that changes every day. But I don't think it is the right > way to give outsiders a first look at what UX2 and UX2BS are about. UX2BS is not intended to be used by people who have not built programs before. It is there as a tool for those people who do want an easy way of building a Unix-like environment for themselves, and I still believe that building an app on the system it is going to be used on is preferred to downloading and installing a pre-compiled binary. > Anton -- John _______________________________________________ UX2BS mailing list UX2BS at os2ports.com http://os2ports.com/mailman/listinfo/ux2bs **= Email 3 ==========================** Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 08:15:52 -0400 From: "T.Sikora" Subject: Re: Re: Plans for UX2BS/UnixOS2... John Poltorak wrote: > On Wed, May 19, 2004 at 11:18:03AM -0500, Anton Monroe wrote: > >>On Wed, May 19, 2004 at 10:41:32AM +0100, John Poltorak wrote: >> > >>However, ease is in the perception of the user. Say I'm an outsider who >>knows nothing about UX2BS. > > > Well maybe you shouldn't have been using it. It is primarily a prototype > build system which, at this point in time is geared towards people > familiar with building ported apps on OS/2. Those are the sort of people > whose feedback is likely to make it more capable. The normal user isn't > likely to be interested in building apps from source - they just want a > pre-compiled binary which they can install. > > > >>put off trying it until I have more time. My perception would be that >>this is "not easy". > > > > Have you previously tried building Perl by following the build > instructions included? Now *that* is 'not easy', but running 'build perl' > is and has been proved to be easy by the numerous people who have done it > successfully. > > >>None of this is intended as a criticism of ux2_bootstrap.cmd. It is >>well designed for what it is used for-- installing the current version >>of a package that changes every day. But I don't think it is the right >>way to give outsiders a first look at what UX2 and UX2BS are about. > > > UX2BS is not intended to be used by people who have not built programs > before. It is there as a tool for those people who do want an easy way of > building a Unix-like environment for themselves, and I still believe that > building an app on the system it is going to be used on is preferred to > downloading and installing a pre-compiled binary. > > >>Anton > > This all comes down to we need both a plug 'n play(distribution) and the build system. The distribution still gets to use the build system's features via the /ports directory if they desire. On the other side of the coin do we really want everything built on the fly. Is it practical? Yeah it's cool but shouldn't it really just be a tool like 'make buildworld' in FreeBSD used usually when the base source code(new version) has changed for preexiasting installs or users that follow the trees like (stable) and (current) with cvs? That's how I use it. Periodically I run a 'make buildkernel' and 'make buildworld' and I have the latest and greatest on the fly. Oh I like the Build System but I'm trying to look at all this from the standpoint of a normal user. Unfortunately unless your a FreeBSD user all this stuff must look like it's from Mars to most. -- T.Sikora tsikora at ntplx dot net _______________________________________________ UX2BS mailing list UX2BS at os2ports.com http://os2ports.com/mailman/listinfo/ux2bs **= Email 4 ==========================** Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 08:21:59 -0400 From: "T.Sikora" Subject: Re: Re: Plans for UX2BS/UnixOS2... T.Sikora wrote: > John Poltorak wrote: > >> On Wed, May 19, 2004 at 11:18:03AM -0500, Anton Monroe wrote: >> >>> On Wed, May 19, 2004 at 10:41:32AM +0100, John Poltorak wrote: >>> >> >> > > This all comes down to we need both a plug 'n play(distribution) and the > build system. The distribution still gets to use the build system's > features via the /ports directory if they desire. On the other side of > the coin do we really want everything built on the fly. Is it practical? > Yeah it's cool but shouldn't it really just be a tool like 'make > buildworld' in FreeBSD used usually when the base source code(new > version) has changed for preexiasting installs or users that follow the > trees like (stable) and (current) with cvs? That's how I use it. > Periodically I run a 'make buildkernel' and 'make buildworld' and I have > the latest and greatest on the fly. > > Oh I like the Build System but I'm trying to look at all this from the > standpoint of a normal user. Unfortunately unless your a FreeBSD user > all this stuff must look like it's from Mars to most. > Maybe I'm being stubborn but I still see UX2BS as the 'core developers' group that builds the routines and mechanisims for the distribution. I really don't see the Build System as a standalone system. UX2 the distribution is what we should be building. Let me know if I'm wrong but that is my understanding of all this. -- T.Sikora tsikora at ntplx dot net _______________________________________________ UX2BS mailing list UX2BS at os2ports.com http://os2ports.com/mailman/listinfo/ux2bs **= Email 5 ==========================** Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 14:12:47 +0100 From: John Poltorak Subject: Re: Re: Plans for UX2BS/UnixOS2... On Thu, May 20, 2004 at 08:15:52AM -0400, T.Sikora wrote: > On the other side of > the coin do we really want everything built on the fly. Is it practical? I don't know how practical it is, but I feel more in control knowing I can build apps myself without needing someone to come and port something for me. Sometimes we are completely in the lurch as we are with TAR because the porter has disappeared and we don't know what he did to get tar built. I don't want to be in the same situation again. Neither do I want to have to wait for someone to make some changes to a Makefile.os2 before I can have an updated OS/2 version of a particular app. > Yeah it's cool but shouldn't it really just be a tool like 'make > buildworld' in FreeBSD The thing is, under FreeBSD it will work, under OS/2 it is unlikely to unless someone has made some effort to see that it does. > -- > T.Sikora > tsikora at ntplx dot net -- John _______________________________________________ UX2BS mailing list UX2BS at os2ports.com http://os2ports.com/mailman/listinfo/ux2bs **= Email 6 ==========================** Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 14:34:39 +0100 From: John Poltorak Subject: Re: Re: Plans for UX2BS/UnixOS2... On Thu, May 20, 2004 at 08:21:59AM -0400, T.Sikora wrote: > Maybe I'm being stubborn but I still see UX2BS as the 'core developers' > group that builds the routines and mechanisims for the distribution. At the moment there is no mechanism to link the built app to a distributable PKG without manual intervention. I see that as a major problem. On top of that UX2BS won't even build a number of core apps which it should, which means you will end up including quite a number of different versions of INTL.DLL and REGEX.DLL. This is one of the things I wanted to avoid. > I > really don't see the Build System as a standalone system. UX2 the > distribution is what we should be building. Let me know if I'm wrong but > that is my understanding of all this. Apart from distributable PKGs I would like to see the creation of an ISO image of a UNIXROOT directory complete with as many apps installed as possible. Another thing which would be handy to have is an OS/2 equivalent of ZIPSLACK. > -- > T.Sikora > tsikora at ntplx dot net -- John _______________________________________________ UX2BS mailing list UX2BS at os2ports.com http://os2ports.com/mailman/listinfo/ux2bs **= Email 7 ==========================** Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 16:37:00 +0200 (CEST) From: Stefan.Neis at t-online.de Subject: Re: Re: Plans for UX2BS/UnixOS2... John Poltorak schrieb: > The thing about UX2BS is that it isn't very > complicated to install. It > couldn't be easier. Actually, it's the most complicated I ever encountered. Once you get the download working, it's easy, but the need for both passive ftp and an rsync proxy (not available where I work, so I'm restricted to try things at home, i.e. on weekends when there are also some other things I want to do ... ;-) ) really can be quite frustrating. Regards, Stefan _______________________________________________ UX2BS mailing list UX2BS at os2ports.com http://os2ports.com/mailman/listinfo/ux2bs **= Email 8 ==========================** Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 11:18:03 -0500 From: Anton Monroe Subject: Re: Re: Plans for UX2BS/UnixOS2... On Wed, May 19, 2004 at 10:41:32AM +0100, John Poltorak wrote: > The thing about UX2BS is that it isn't very complicated to install. It > couldn't be easier. The whole aim of UX2BS is to make the building of apps > as easy as possible by creating an environment which limits the scope for > error as much as possible. A fully automated build environment has been my > aim in this project. That is one of the reasons it has been so painfully > slow. No question, the automated installation is one of the strengths of UX2BS. In general, I like it. However, ease is in the perception of the user. Say I'm an outsider who knows nothing about UX2BS. If I see a set of zip files to download, that's something I understand. I can look at the size of the package to get an idea of how long it will take to download. I can look inside the zip files to see what I'm getting. I can examine the scripts to see what they are going to do before I run them. The process seems "easy" because I've done it before. But what if the web site only offers ux2_bootstrap.cmd? First I download it and look at it. It looks like it will download some files from a nameless site, using a program called rsync that I've never heard of, and then run some other scripts that I can't examine yet. I have no idea what those scripts will do. Granted, I will think it is highly unlikely that UX2BS is a plot to infect my machine with an OS/2 virus or spyware, but I will have some reservations. You are essentially asking me to trust you and turn over control of my machine to your script. I don't know how buggy it is, whether it will try to modify my CONFIG.SYS, if it will prompt me before overwriting existing files, or what apps it will run. I have no idea how long the process will take; I may want to put off trying it until I have more time. My perception would be that this is "not easy". And that assumes that ux2_bootstrap.cmd will work as designed. At this point in its development, it is simple to run, but not robust. In my case, here is what would happen: the ftp script to download the first few files won't work. I will look at the script again and manually download those files. The script will do some downloading and start compiling. Sooner or later one of the compilations, probably perl, will take so long that my dial-up connection to the Internet times out. Say I need to edit one of the scripts in /unixos2/lib. Then I re-run ux2_bootstrap.cmd. It ignores my changes. I look at the scripts again and figure out that rsync overwrites the changes I made. I slap my forehead and realize that of course I have to do the editing at the time of the 'pause' in ux2_bootstrap.cmd, after rsync has run. It is possible to work around those things. I do work around them. But if ux2_bootstrap.cmd had been my first exposure to UX2BS, I probably would have decided not to explore it further right now. I would have bookmarked the website and planned to check it out again when it had matured a little more. In my case, it was Ted's package that got me interested enough to try yours. None of this is intended as a criticism of ux2_bootstrap.cmd. It is well designed for what it is used for-- installing the current version of a package that changes every day. But I don't think it is the right way to give outsiders a first look at what UX2 and UX2BS are about. Anton _______________________________________________ UX2BS mailing list UX2BS at os2ports.com http://os2ports.com/mailman/listinfo/ux2bs