Re: XFree86 host.def file questions
An unnamed Administration source, Kendall Bennett, wrote: % David Dawes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: % % I guess you must have read something to even know about the existence % of a host.def file. I presume that it was misleading, and so should % be fixed. % % Yes, I have the file that I printed out sitting on my desk! As it turns % out, it appears to be rather outdated and antiquated and I am not sure % exactly where I found it now. % % I think that http://www.xfree86.org/current/BUILD.html is a % reasonable introduction to building XFree86, but suggestions for % improving that document are most welcome. [...] % To solve this problem it would be great if someone added a new section to % the primary XFree86 web site titled something like 'Building XFree86 for % the first time'. It could have a paragraph describing how easy it is to % build XFree86, and then have a link to the BUILD.html file. If that was % available when I started building it again a few months back I think it % would have saved me a lot of time ;-) How about: Special Edition Building XFree86 for the First Time for Compleat Morons in 24 Hours by Example Unleashed. ;-) Kurt -- If you push the extra ice button on the soft drink vending machine, you won't get any ice. If you push the no ice button, you'll get ice, but no cup. ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: XFree86 host.def file questions
can someone recommend the best 'grep' command fgrep '***' is the least awkward for me to type. Regards, Craig Groeschel __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop! http://platinum.yahoo.com ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: XFree86 host.def file questions
On Thursday, Mar 27, 2003, at 11:02 Europe/Paris, Aidan Kehoe wrote: That would be really useful. Also, defining HasParallelMake causes a obscure build failure for me on NetBSD 1.6P; it may be worth mentioning this in the docs so other people don't have to resort to binary search on customized host.defs :-) . Could you submit this report to the XFre86 bugzilla, so that we don't forget to look at this and hopefully fix it ? Parallel builds have beed mostly tested using GNU make on linux. Having them work with BSD make is a good thing. Matthieu Herrb ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: XFree86 host.def file questions
Ar an 26ú lá de mí 3, scríobh Matthieu Herrb : I'll probably merge some of its informaion into the BUILD document in the XFree86 tree if people find it useful. That would be really useful. Also, defining HasParallelMake causes a obscure build failure for me on NetBSD 1.6P; it may be worth mentioning this in the docs so other people don't have to resort to binary search on customized host.defs :-) . -- I have heard the swelling cry of the English speaking peoples of the world, and it tells me their cause is served best by flaming the few complacent asses on usenet. -- T. Samant, 29 June 1997 ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: XFree86 host.def file questions
David Dawes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I guess you must have read something to even know about the existence of a host.def file. I presume that it was misleading, and so should be fixed. Yes, I have the file that I printed out sitting on my desk! As it turns out, it appears to be rather outdated and antiquated and I am not sure exactly where I found it now. I think that http://www.xfree86.org/current/BUILD.html is a reasonable introduction to building XFree86, but suggestions for improving that document are most welcome. Yes, that version of the document is a *lot* better than the version I found, and looks like it was udpated recently. The key problem I think I have isolated here is simply that this document is nowhere to be found easily. It is buried *deep* within the XFree86 source tree (xc/programs/Xserver/hw/docs) so people need to know to get there first to find it, and it is not linked anywhere on the primary XFree86 web site. To solve this problem it would be great if someone added a new section to the primary XFree86 web site titled something like 'Building XFree86 for the first time'. It could have a paragraph describing how easy it is to build XFree86, and then have a link to the BUILD.html file. If that was available when I started building it again a few months back I think it would have saved me a lot of time ;-) for documentation in general is is http://www.xfree86.org/current/, which is an index of the online documentation that we have available for the most recent release. Right, another page I could not find very easily! This is another page that I think should be made clearly visible via a link on the main XFree86.org home page. I am scanning the docs now to see what I have been missing ;-) I wish there was as much information available when I got started. :-) I wish I knew the information was available! Seriously ;-) I can understand that you're pretty busy and have a lot to do. If the typical would-be developer is put off by not being able to build within 10 minutes of unpacking, then they're probably not going to make much progress with any real development challenges. I'll spare everyone my when I was a lad stories :-) Actually I disagree. Developers who are looking for a solution and can't get stuff going quickly, will go look for another solution. If I can get it going, I will spend more time investigating the solution as then I know the project is well polished and worth my time investigating. Regards, --- Kendall Bennett Chief Executive Officer SciTech Software, Inc. Phone: (530) 894 8400 http://www.scitechsoft.com ~ SciTech SNAP - The future of device driver technology! ~ ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: XFree86 host.def file questions
On Thu, Mar 27, 2003 at 04:01:56PM -0800, Kendall Bennett wrote: Hi Again, I think that http://www.xfree86.org/current/BUILD.html is a reasonable introduction to building XFree86, but suggestions for improving that document are most welcome. Going through the current BUILD.html file again I see that things are a lot clearer now. However one thing that needs to be explained is the section that says 'When the build is finished, you should check the World.log file to see if there were any problems'. Fair enough. Well the first time a user attemps to do exactly that, they will bring it up in their favorite editor and immediately say to themselves 'How the hell do I know if there is an error!'. The next obvious idea is to grep for 'error', but that also is not good because there are lots of files with 'error' in the filename! As I have now found out, there are a few simple grep commands that can be used to grep the World.log file and determine if any errors occurred. It would be really nice if the BUILD file had a description of a good grep command and how it can be used to check for errors. That would have saved me a lot of time also tracking down the weird '@Aliases' build problem I was having ;-) Kendall, Your obviously making good progress on getting things going, but the problems your hitting are kind of hidden to the die hard developers. Your making observations on how some of the documentation is deficient. What I would recommend you doing is changing the documentation and submitting a patch to improve it rather than relying on others to update it. That would be a great bonus! Alan. ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: XFree86 host.def file questions
On Thu, Mar 27, 2003 at 04:01:56PM -0800, Kendall Bennett wrote: Hi Again, I think that http://www.xfree86.org/current/BUILD.html is a reasonable introduction to building XFree86, but suggestions for improving that document are most welcome. Going through the current BUILD.html file again I see that things are a lot clearer now. However one thing that needs to be explained is the section that says 'When the build is finished, you should check the World.log file to see if there were any problems'. Fair enough. Well the first time a user attemps to do exactly that, they will bring it up in their favorite editor and immediately say to themselves 'How the hell do I know if there is an error!'. The next obvious idea is to grep for 'error', but that also is not good because there are lots of files with 'error' in the filename! actually Error is what I look for (depends on the compiler and related utilities). -- Thomas E. Dickey [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://invisible-island.net ftp://invisible-island.net ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: XFree86 host.def file questions
Alan Hourihane [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Your obviously making good progress on getting things going, but the problems your hitting are kind of hidden to the die hard developers. Yep, a typical problem ;-) Your making observations on how some of the documentation is deficient. What I would recommend you doing is changing the documentation and submitting a patch to improve it rather than relying on others to update it. That would be a great bonus! I would be happy to make updates to the BUILD file and submit the improvements back (who would I submit my patches to?). I will try to spend some time tomorrow doing that. With that said, can someone recommend the best 'grep' command to use to determine if there are any errors in the World.log file? Finally some of the issues I have had are simply that the good documentation is too buried. My suggestions to fix this require updates to the XFree86.org web site, something I can't do. I would be happy to suggest the text that could be added to the web site, if someone can direct me to the webmaster who can make the changes on the real web site. Regards, --- Kendall Bennett Chief Executive Officer SciTech Software, Inc. Phone: (530) 894 8400 http://www.scitechsoft.com ~ SciTech SNAP - The future of device driver technology! ~ ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: XFree86 host.def file questions
On Fre, 2003-03-28 at 02:44, Kendall Bennett wrote: With that said, can someone recommend the best 'grep' command to use to determine if there are any errors in the World.log file? I use grep '\*\*\*' to catch the make errors. -- Earthling Michel Dänzer (MrCooper)/ Debian GNU/Linux (powerpc) developer XFree86 and DRI project member / CS student, Free Software enthusiast ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: XFree86 host.def file questions
On Wed, 26 Mar 2003, Kendall Bennett wrote: Hi Guys, One area that appears to be severely lacking for the 'new' developer is guidance on how to set up the host.def file properly so that you can build XFree86 successfully on your system. The default xf86site.def is a good start, but it doesn't really explain things since everything is essentially commented out. You don't really know what stuff you *should* define to get a standard build on different systems. Perhaps a good start would be to have a directory with sample host.def files in it, especially a good 'default' file that can be used to build a complete XFree86 system on Linux and FreeBSD for instance. That is where a lot of developers could really use a default they can just copy to host.def and then do a 'make World'. The xf86site.def IS the sample host.def. You don't need the host.def. It merely overrides the xf86site.def and provides a way to edit a file that doesn't get clobbered by CVS. If 'make World' doesn't just build without any editing at all, that is a bug. Which brings me to my question. Do I need to uncomment the XF86CardDrivers section in the host.def file in order to build the driver modules? The comments would seem to indicate you need to do this, but IMHO that would be kind of silly (too error prone). I *think* in reality if you do not define this that the default set of all drivers will be built, and you can use this define to change which drivers actually get built. Is that correct? All drivers get built unless you uncomment and edit the XF86CardDrivers. The point of doing that in a separate file (the host.def) is so you don't prevent the sample (the xf86site.def) from patching properly. Mark. ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: XFree86 host.def file questions
On Wed, Mar 26, 2003 at 12:42:03PM -0800, Kendall Bennett wrote: Hi Guys, One area that appears to be severely lacking for the 'new' developer is guidance on how to set up the host.def file properly so that you can build XFree86 successfully on your system. The default xf86site.def is a good start, but it doesn't really explain things since everything is essentially commented out. You don't really know what stuff you *should* define to get a standard build on different systems. Perhaps a good start would be to have a directory with sample host.def files in it, especially a good 'default' file that can be used to build a complete XFree86 system on Linux and FreeBSD for instance. That is where a lot of developers could really use a default they can just copy to host.def and then do a 'make World'. The general rule is don't create a host.def file unless you find you need to. It follows from this that a good default file is an empty one, hence the empty collection of sample host.def files :-). If the build fails without one, it's usually a bug. David -- David Dawes Founder/committer/developer The XFree86 Project www.XFree86.org/~dawes ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: XFree86 host.def file questions
On Wed, Mar 26, 2003 at 02:51:13PM -0800, Kendall Bennett wrote: Mark Vojkovich [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: One area that appears to be severely lacking for the 'new' developer is guidance on how to set up the host.def file properly so that you can build XFree86 successfully on your system. The default xf86site.def is a good start, but it doesn't really explain things since everything is essentially commented out. You don't really know what stuff you *should* define to get a standard build on different systems. Perhaps a good start would be to have a directory with sample host.def files in it, especially a good 'default' file that can be used to build a complete XFree86 system on Linux and FreeBSD for instance. That is where a lot of developers could really use a default they can just copy to host.def and then do a 'make World'. The xf86site.def IS the sample host.def. You don't need the host.def. It merely overrides the xf86site.def and provides a way to edit a file that doesn't get clobbered by CVS. If 'make World' doesn't just build without any editing at all, that is a bug. Well if you don't actually need a host.def file, then that needs to be *much* more clearly explained in the build documentation. I just went Quoting from http://www.xfree86.org/current/BUILD2.html: 2. Configuring the source before building In most cases it shouldn't be necessary to configure anything before building. If you do want to make configuration changes, it is recommended that you start by going to ... David -- David Dawes Founder/committer/developer The XFree86 Project www.XFree86.org/~dawes ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: XFree86 host.def file questions
David Dawes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The general rule is don't create a host.def file unless you find you need to. It follows from this that a good default file is an empty one, hence the empty collection of sample host.def files :-). If the build fails without one, it's usually a bug. I can see that now, but when I was starting trying to build this stuff not long ago that was not at all clear to me. Seems to me that the barrier to entry for new developers with XFree86 is the lack of documentation and a simple 'getting started' guide. It helps immensely with projects if developers can download and do a successful compile within the first 10 minutes of unpacking the source code IMHO. Any longer and they start to lose interest fast ;-) Regards, --- Kendall Bennett Chief Executive Officer SciTech Software, Inc. Phone: (530) 894 8400 http://www.scitechsoft.com ~ SciTech SNAP - The future of device driver technology! ~ ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: XFree86 host.def file questions
On Wed, Mar 26, 2003 at 05:11:36PM -0800, Kendall Bennett wrote: David Dawes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The general rule is don't create a host.def file unless you find you need to. It follows from this that a good default file is an empty one, hence the empty collection of sample host.def files :-). If the build fails without one, it's usually a bug. I can see that now, but when I was starting trying to build this stuff not long ago that was not at all clear to me. Seems to me that the barrier to entry for new developers with XFree86 is the lack of documentation and a simple 'getting started' guide. It helps immensely with projects if developers can download and do a successful compile within the first 10 minutes of unpacking the source code IMHO. Any longer and they start to lose interest fast ;-) I guess you must have read something to even know about the existence of a host.def file. I presume that it was misleading, and so should be fixed. I think that http://www.xfree86.org/current/BUILD.html is a reasonable introduction to building XFree86, but suggestions for improving that document are most welcome. The best starting point for documentation in general is is http://www.xfree86.org/current/, which is an index of the online documentation that we have available for the most recent release. I wish there was as much information available when I got started. :-) I can understand that you're pretty busy and have a lot to do. If the typical would-be developer is put off by not being able to build within 10 minutes of unpacking, then they're probably not going to make much progress with any real development challenges. I'll spare everyone my when I was a lad stories :-) David -- David Dawes Founder/committer/developer The XFree86 Project www.XFree86.org/~dawes ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
