#4382 In 5.47.0 release, config.{guess,sub} files are outdated

[Levi Zim]

Hi, the config.{guess,sub} files included in the 5.47.0 release are very outdated(from 2013) and as a result causes a build failure on new architectures like RISC-V. It would be nice if you could update those files to a new version when making next release.

checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /usr/bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking whether make supports nested variables... yes
checking whether UID '1011' is supported by ustar format... yes
checking whether GID '1011' is supported by ustar format... yes
checking how to create a ustar tar archive... gnutar
checking for emacs... emacs
checking where .elc files should go... ${datarootdir}/emacs/site-lisp
checking build system type... ./config.guess: unable to guess system type

This script, last modified 2013-06-10, has failed to recognize
the operating system you are using. It is advised that you
download the most up to date version of the config scripts from

  http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=config.git;a=blob_plain;f=config.guess;hb=HEAD
and
  http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=config.git;a=blob_plain;f=config.sub;hb=HEAD

If the version you run (./config.guess) is already up to date, please
send the following data and any information you think might be
pertinent to <config-patches@gnu.org> in order to provide the needed
information to handle your system.

config.guess timestamp = 2013-06-10

uname -m = riscv64
uname -r = 6.1.80-2-sophgo-11457-g83ab3eda46e6
uname -s = Linux
uname -v = #1 SMP Sun, 21 Apr 2024 11:50:11 +0000

/usr/bin/uname -p = unknown
/bin/uname -X     = 

hostinfo               = 
/bin/universe          = 
/usr/bin/arch -k       = 
/bin/arch              = 
/usr/bin/oslevel       = 
/usr/convex/getsysinfo = 

UNAME_MACHINE = riscv64
UNAME_RELEASE = 6.1.80-2-sophgo-11457-g83ab3eda46e6
UNAME_SYSTEM  = Linux
UNAME_VERSION = #1 SMP Sun, 21 Apr 2024 11:50:11 +0000
configure: error: cannot guess build type; you must specify one

[Robert Dodier]

Hmm. It appears that Maxima's config.guess and config.sub aren't in Git, which makes me think that they are created by the autoconf machinery and therefore might possibly depend on the autoconf version. Do you know how config.guess and config.sub are conventionally created? Are they installed by autoconf? Are they installed by hand? Thanks for any insights.

[Levi Zim]

Those files are copied from the autoconf installation when creating the release tarball with the script from autoconf. So usually upgrading the autoconf package on the machine that is used to generate those release tarballs is the most simple way to fix it.

[Robert Dodier]

Some experimentation on my development box (an aging Ubuntu 16.04 system) seems to suggest that both automake and autoconf need to be updated. At any rate, after building and installing autoconf 2.72, config.guess was still an old version, but after also building and installing automake 1.17, config.guess is now a recent version.

I will ask the person currently taking on the release tarball responsibility (V. Toth) about updating autoconf and automake.