[lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
Hi, in the lfs-book you need some patches. I wonder, why these patches are needed? Are the upstream-sources not able to be compiled without? Thanks! Best Regards Stefan -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
Re: [lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
On Thu, 2013-05-16 at 09:03 +0200, Stefan Rebekka Wetter wrote: Hi, in the lfs-book you need some patches. I wonder, why these patches are needed? Are the upstream-sources not able to be compiled without? Depends on the patch. Some are upstream fixes not yet in an upstream release. Others are a matter of changing things to suit the LFS build, and aren't suitable for upstream. The book generally tells you what each patch is for... Simon. -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
Re: [lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
On 5/16/2013 12:03 AM, Stefan Rebekka Wetter wrote: Hi, in the lfs-book you need some patches. I wonder, why these patches are needed? Are the upstream-sources not able to be compiled without? Thanks! Best Regards Stefan The number of patches in LFS is very small compared to the number of patches in any Linux distribution I have ever used. Any software project has bugs. It is hard to catch some bugs before release because the software is not yet in wide use so certain issues have not been found during the test phase. Sometimes upstream makes assumptions in the build process about building on a complete Linux install rather than a minimal bootstrap build. Sometimes changes in a library a package links against requires patches in the package. At least once the build process is done and you can boot into the system, most software that uses an autoconf system can be easily built without applying patches, but when a patch resolves an issue then often it is better to apply the patch than not to. When issues are reported to upstream they usually don't make a new release right away, there are often more than one way to solve a problem and patches frequently are used until a new release is made when upstream has decided how they want to officially resolve the issue. -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
Re: [lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
Em 16-05-2013 06:30, Alice Wonder escreveu: On 5/16/2013 12:03 AM, Stefan Rebekka Wetter wrote: ... in the lfs-book you need some patches. I wonder, why ... The number of patches in LFS is very small compared to the number of patches in any Linux distribution I have ever used. Any software project has bugs. Long ago (almost three decades) I was trying to improve my programming skills, and learned in a book (I think it was written in French): Laws of programming (something such as): 0. There is no bug free software. 1. Every software should be bug free. (Do not remember the number of the following law): ?. Every software should be fool proof. This one was followed by a comment that the programmer should blame himself, not the end user, for problems or events like a crash, for example, so should include tests, tests, tests... I have tried to find these laws searching the internet without success. Cannot recall if they were stated seriously or as in-line jokes, like today's Murphy's Laws of Programming, e.g., (http://forums.speedguide.net/showthread.php?166822-Murphy-s-laws-for-Programming-Enjoy): -- []s, Fernando -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
[lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
Am 16.5.2013 03:03, schrieb Stefan Rebekka Wetter:
I wonder, why these patches are needed?
Are the upstream-sources not able to be compiled without?
Good questions (as they say). While trying to stay on topic,
I'll take the liberty and rephrase them to
Why are patches needed at all?
for my post and try to answer/comment.
First, I agree with the previous respondents (patches are just needed,
some address the unique(?) configurations of (B)LFS, what would the
world be without them, just live with them etc.)
Now that so many celebrities have come out on this, I've decided
to finally break my own silence on this subject that had been obsessing
me for years. I'll use a particular example but it's more general
(and possibly ugly, cover-up, sloppiness?, etc.) in nature.
For me, it all started on a dark and stormy night, while trying to
compile GTK+ 2.22.0 and failing. It culminated in
Bug 631910 of 2010-10-11:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=631910 (for the curious)
In case you're there, please observe (and absorb) the Comment #1
(and only) which quickly closed this non issue.
True or incompetence or cover-up, etc.? I've obsessed on this ever since.
In desperation, I created a little note for myself to use on any
subsequent compilation (BLFS style) of a new GTK+ 2 version on
2011-03-08 (i.e., more than two years ago) which reads (FWIW):
# After untarring the package (_before_ configure)
sed -i s/db2html gtk-faq.sgml/db2html \
gtk-faq.sgml -o gtk-faq/ docs/faq/Makefile.in ; echo $?
sed -i s/db2html gtk-tut.sgml/db2html \
gtk-tut.sgml -o gtk-tut/ docs/tutorial/Makefile.in ; echo $?
Now, it so happens the BLFS instructions for GTK+-2.24.17 state
(as of 2013-05-09):
Install GTK+ 2 by running the following commands:
sed -i 's#l \(gtk-.*\).sgml# -o \1#' docs/{faq,tutorial}/Makefile.in
...
(sounds eerily similar to my Oct. 2010 beef, don't it?)
So on this particular example (but much more widespread, as I said)
my obsessive question was (and still is):
How do some other people compile their package, and in what
configurations so that they are obviously NOT in need of an
LFS/BLFS style patch?
How? How?
I'd like to thank the issuers (husband and wife?) of and commentators
on this thread. You really helped me lift a heavy burden off my chest,
a burden I had to keep inside for so many years.
Still obsessed and puzzled (evidently), but at peace with myself now,
-- Alex
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Re: [lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 12:37:21PM -0400, alex lupu wrote: So on this particular example (but much more widespread, as I said) my obsessive question was (and still is): How do some other people compile their package, and in what configurations so that they are obviously NOT in need of an LFS/BLFS style patch? How? How? For non-LFS packages, both those in BLFS and those which aren't, I go with whatever works. My aim is simple - just get it to build! This is also why I will take a patch from a random distro, try it, and use it if it solves the problem - from time to time people point out that a sed will do the same job ;) For LFS, I try to do the same as the book. I don't think that worrying over the need for patches is a good use of time : there are all sorts of packages - some mostly get tested on osx or a BSD variant, others get tested on older systems. A view even get tested on more-bleeding-edge-than-BLFS. e.g. the arch way of building/installing of libcdio is required for audacious plugins and current libcdio because it was an arch user who reported a problem with latest libcdio. At that time the audacious devs were using older libcdio. On occasion, configure switches sometimes solve build failures I get (e.g. --disable-introspection for a couple of gnomic packages I still use, and --without-vcd-info for the two parts of libcdio). Also, ISTR some of our seds are to ensure that documentation goes into a versioned directory. Similarly, configure switches for docdir [ and libexecdir overrides - some people hate /usr/libexec ]. All I can really suggest is that you make your system useful for what you wish to do on it, and then use it - trying to keep up to date with new versions (I include testing and rejecting them in some situations) is enough work without worrying about the purity of a patched build. ĸen -- das eine Mal als Tragödie, das andere Mal als Farce -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
Re: [lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
I have sent this in the morning, about 7 hours ago, it never appeared. Now, I have edited some words to see if the anti-spam was blocking them. Mensagem original Assunto: Re: [lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches Data: Thu, 16 May 2013 07:38:49 -0300 De: Fernando fam...@yahoo.com.br Para: lfs-support@linuxfromscratch.org Em 16-05-2013 06:30, Alice Wonder escreveu: On 5/16/2013 12:03 AM, Stefan Rebekka Wetter wrote: ... in the lfs-book you need some patches. I wonder, why ... The number of patches in LFS is very small compared to the number of patches in any Linux distribution I have ever used. Any software project has bugs. Long ago (almost three decades) I was trying to improve my programming skills, and learned in a book (I think it was written in French): Laws of programming (something such as): 0. There is no bug free software. 1. Every software should be bug free. (Do not remember the number of the following law): ?. Every software should be fool proof. This one was followed by a comment that the programmer should blame himself, not the end user, for problems or events like a crash, for example, so should include tests, tests, tests... I have tried to find these laws searching the internet without success. Cannot recall if they were meant or were like today's M's Laws of Programming, e.g., (http://forums.speedguide.net/showthread.php?166822-Murphy-s-laws-for-Programming-Enjoy): -- []s, Fernando -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
Re: [lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
On Thu, 16 May 2013 15:22:19 -0300 Fernando fam...@yahoo.com.br wrote: I have sent this in the morning, about 7 hours ago, it never appeared. Now, I have edited some words to see if the anti-spam was blocking them. It arrived for me, as well as the follow-up email. Perhaps Yahoo is also using the echo-block that Gmail is using? (An echo block is when your mail server removes the e-mails from the mail list that were sent by you.) -- You don't need an AI for a robot uprising. Humans will do just fine. --Skynet -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
Re: [lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
On Thu, 16 May 2013 12:37:21 -0400 alex lupu alup...@gmail.com wrote: Am 16.5.2013 03:03, schrieb Stefan Rebekka Wetter: I wonder, why these patches are needed? Are the upstream-sources not able to be compiled without? Good questions (as they say). While trying to stay on topic, I'll take the liberty and rephrase them to Why are patches needed at all? for my post and try to answer/comment. First, I agree with the previous respondents (patches are just needed, some address the unique(?) configurations of (B)LFS, what would the world be without them, just live with them etc.) Now that so many celebrities have come out on this, I've decided to finally break my own silence on this subject that had been obsessing me for years. I'll use a particular example but it's more general (and possibly ugly, cover-up, sloppiness?, etc.) in nature. For me, it all started on a dark and stormy night, while trying to compile GTK+ 2.22.0 and failing. It culminated in Bug 631910 of 2010-10-11: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=631910 (for the curious) In case you're there, please observe (and absorb) the Comment #1 (and only) which quickly closed this non issue. True or incompetence or cover-up, etc.? I've obsessed on this ever since. [snip] I'd like to thank the issuers (husband and wife?) of and commentators on this thread. You really helped me lift a heavy burden off my chest, a burden I had to keep inside for so many years. Still obsessed and puzzled (evidently), but at peace with myself now, -- Alex This appears to be a case of the developer having a sprawling system, full of various bells and wistles and simply not detecting that that particular make rule (or some other in the dependency chain) depends on something that he has, but people with sleakier system (such as you or me) don't have. I see this all the time with gtkdoc. Gtkdoc is some package which is used to generate documentation. I don't have because I don't need it. I also believe that having it is not and should not be necceasary. But the developers of just about anything have it and use it. Now, this is not something that you will see if you use releases but I am trying to use repository tarbals for everything which means I have to generate the configure. And the scripts and code which do that assume that gtkdoc is present. So every time I wish to do that, I have to hack the pre-configure files and remove all traces of gtkdoc. I just went back to analyze the bug report and your fix that you reported in the mail, and the only logical explanation is that your (or any LFS') copy of db2html did something different than the developers copy of db2html. If db2html is generated during the build procedure (and it is apparently, since I seem to not have it my $PATH), then this may be much more convoluted than just a simple version mismatch. Bottom line: this is probably because you don't have something that the developer has. Now, what that is is a much bigger question than is really worth figuring out, especially since there is already a fix. -- You don't need an AI for a robot uprising. Humans will do just fine. --Skynet -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
Re: [lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
Le 16/05/2013 20:22, Fernando a écrit : I have sent this in the morning, about 7 hours ago, it never appeared. Actually, I got it at 12:38 (western European time), while the one where you added the above sentence arrived at 20:22. Both are on gmane too... Regards Pierre -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
Re: [lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
Ken Moffat wrote: I don't think that worrying over the need for patches is a good use of time I agree with this, but remember the slogan of LFS. 'Your distro, your rules'. Users are free to use patches or not. The thing to remember is that the LFS editors don't like patches, but only add them when we think it is necessary for the LFS environment. I was looking at the patches a few days ago and was thinking that the total number has really decreased lately. Right now, there are only eight. I can remember when there were twice that many. Also, the headers in each patch describe the purpose of that particular patch. Finally, there are philosophically no differences between a sed and a patch. Both have the same purpose--to enhance the user experience. We prefer using a sed because the changes made is more visible. -- Bruce -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
Re: [lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
On 5/16/2013 1:04 PM, Bruce Dubbs wrote: *snip* Finally, there are philosophically no differences between a sed and a patch. Both have the same purpose--to enhance the user experience. We prefer using a sed because the changes made is more visible. -- Bruce I prefer sed for minor changes that don't really affect how the program operates but maybe fix a build (or sometimes just make install) issue and patches for bug fixes that are a result of coding bugs. -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
Re: [lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
Em 16-05-2013 16:44, Aleksandar Kuktin escreveu: On Thu, 16 May 2013 15:22:19 -0300 Fernando wrote: I have sent this in the morning, about 7 hours ago, it never appeared. Now, I have edited some words to see if the anti-spam was blocking them. It arrived for me, as well as the follow-up email. Perhaps Yahoo is also using the echo-block that Gmail is using? (An echo block is when your mail server removes the e-mails from the mail list that were sent by you.) Perhaps. But the other one arrived. Em 16-05-2013 17:01, Pierre Labastie escreveu: Le 16/05/2013 20:22, Fernando a écrit : I have sent this in the morning, about 7 hours ago, it never appeared. Actually, I got it at 12:38 (western European time), while the one where you added the above sentence arrived at 20:22. Both are on gmane too... Regards Pierre Thank you, Aleksandar and Pierre, for the replies. -- []s, Fernando -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
Re: [lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 09:44:50PM +0200, Aleksandar Kuktin wrote: On Thu, 16 May 2013 15:22:19 -0300 Fernando fam...@yahoo.com.br wrote: I have sent this in the morning, about 7 hours ago, it never appeared. Now, I have edited some words to see if the anti-spam was blocking them. It arrived for me, as well as the follow-up email. Perhaps Yahoo is also using the echo-block that Gmail is using? (An echo block is when your mail server removes the e-mails from the mail list that were sent by you.) I haven't seen *any* of Fernando's posts in the last two days, only replies from other people! ĸen -- das eine Mal als Tragödie, das andere Mal als Farce -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
[lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
Hi Aleksandar,
You wrote (excerpt):
I just went back to analyze the bug report and your fix that you
reported in the mail, and the only logical explanation is that your (or
any LFS') copy of db2html did something different than the developers
copy of db2html. If db2html is generated during the build procedure
(and it is apparently, since I seem to not have it my $PATH), then this
may be much more convoluted than just a simple version mismatch.
Bottom line: this is probably because you don't have something that the
developer has.
This is my (alex) reply:
Here is just a key excerpt of my original post:
In desperation, I created a little note for myself to use on any
subsequent compilation (BLFS style) of a new GTK+ 2 version on
2011-03-08 (i.e., more than two years ago) which reads (FWIW):
# After untarring the package (_before_ configure)
sed -i s/db2html gtk-faq.sgml/db2html \
gtk-faq.sgml -o gtk-faq/ docs/faq/Makefile.in ; echo $?
sed -i s/db2html gtk-tut.sgml/db2html \
gtk-tut.sgml -o gtk-tut/ docs/tutorial/Makefile.in ; echo $?
Now, it so happens the BLFS instructions for GTK+-2.24.17 state
(as [late as] 2013-05-09):
Install GTK+ 2 by running the following commands:
sed -i 's#l \(gtk-.*\).sgml# -o \1#' docs/{faq,tutorial}/Makefile.in
...
(sounds eerily similar to my Oct. 2010 beef, don't it?)
UNLESS I'm wrong (I didn't have time and energy to thoroughly compare
my original patch to BLFS's latest - and long standing - patch,
so I MAY easily be wrong),
it appears that both me (as early as 2011-03-08) and the BLFS _world_
have hit the same problem in compiling any GTK+ 2 version (up to this day),
i.e., the original core of my post (presented in a little convoluted way, I
admit),
still stands:
How come there is such a technical difference between so many people
(me and all the BLFS aficionados) and the developer (or anybody in
that organization, for that matter)?
Why is that difference so critical and so our fault that we've just
taken it lying down all these years?
Thanks for your comments,
-- Alex
BTW, a patch is mostly in the eye of the beholder; some call many of
them, sed.
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Re: [lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
On 5/16/2013 2:08 PM, alex lupu wrote: BTW, a patch is mostly in the eye of the beholder; some call many of them, sed. Cute, I like it. Submitting sed scripts upstream though seems to be frowned upon, they like patches. I agree with the concept of minimal patches. I think over-patching creates problems. When I RPM bootstrapped my LFS, I wrote most of my spec files in Fedora 18 so I could do things like run rpmlint on the result and get it right before building in LFS. The bash spec file consistently builds in LFS but in Fedora 18 on same machine, about 20% of the time it fails, something weird about Fedora must result in a race condition that doesn't exist in my LFS and I'm guessing it is related to the large amount of patches Fedora has, many of which only make sense for enterprise and not a typical system. -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
Re: [lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
Ken Moffat wrote: On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 09:44:50PM +0200, Aleksandar Kuktin wrote: On Thu, 16 May 2013 15:22:19 -0300 Fernando fam...@yahoo.com.br wrote: I have sent this in the morning, about 7 hours ago, it never appeared. Now, I have edited some words to see if the anti-spam was blocking them. It arrived for me, as well as the follow-up email. Perhaps Yahoo is also using the echo-block that Gmail is using? (An echo block is when your mail server removes the e-mails from the mail list that were sent by you.) I haven't seen *any* of Fernando's posts in the last two days, only replies from other people! Curious. I have not seen any problems. I don't think the problem is on the LFS side. -- Bruce -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
Re: [lfs-support] why does LFS need that number of patches
Alice Wonder wrote: On 5/16/2013 2:08 PM, alex lupu wrote: BTW, a patch is mostly in the eye of the beholder; some call many of them, sed. Cute, I like it. Submitting sed scripts upstream though seems to be frowned upon, they like patches. Generally, they want to patch all the files, including the ChangeLog with one command to give proper attribution. -- Bruce -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
