Re: [TuxKart-devel] configure dir

[Bram S. <br...@ch...>]

Steve Baker wrote:
> 
> Bram Stolk wrote:
> 
> > A remark:
> > autocont/automake suggests doing the configure stage in a directory
> > other than the distrib dir.
> 
> Why?  That's crazy - everyone unpacks the tarball, cd's into
> the newly formed directory and types ./configure;make;make install
> ...which works just fine.
> 
> Why on earth would you want to do any different?
> 
> > If you follow this advice, a make install will fail for tuxkart.
> > (/usr/local/share/* remains empty)
> > Turkart will only install if distrib-dir == configure-dir.
> 
> I guess I don't understand the issue - nobody else of the 1000 or
> so downloads since yesterday has mentioned this. TuxAQFH and PLIB
> both use the same mechanisms - and between those two, that's 200,000
> downloads with no complaints.
> 
> What's the problem?

Eh, you're right about the little impact of the issue, and because
it works for 99.999999% of your users, I understand that it is probably
not worth fixing.

However, if you want to do the "Right Thing" as you call it, I beg you to
read a bit further.

The document "the GNU configure and build system" states that seperation is
'highly recommended',
and gives some arguments at http://www.airs.com/ian/configure/

an excerpt:

* In order to use a object directory which is different from the source
directory, you must be using the GNU version of `make', * which has the
* required `VPATH' support. Despite this restriction, using a different object
directory is highly recommended: 
*
*      It keeps the files generated during the build from cluttering up your
sources. 
*      It permits you to remove the built files by simply removing the entire
build directory. 
*      It permits you to build from the same sources with several sets of
configure options simultaneously. 

But I think the author forgets the main reason:

If I want to build for three architectures (intel,alpha,ppc), and for each
architecture
I want to test the difference between optimized and non-optimized builds, then I
do not
want to have 6 copies of the source. Each target each own build dir, and only 1
src dir
is very clean.

Heck, you could even have a Mesa-build and a nVidia OGL build coexist on your
system,
sharing the same sources. Now don't tell me that this does not appeal to you :-)
It
really must.

Also, making a distribution is easier, you can tar the src dir, without having
to worry
about what's in there: it will be sources only, no configure residue.

But as I've said, the numbers tell you it's not worth the effort. So please
ignore my pedantic ramblings, and enjoy the success of yet another steve
and oliver baker tux game :-)
I just hope you agree with me now, that the illicit reasons do exist.

    Bram Stolk


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
  Bram Stolk               "Linux - Why use windows, if there is a door?"
  work: br...@sa...
  priv: br...@ch...