Hi all, i am struggling lately to build again a usable T2 with Xorg and xfce based on the latest t2-9.0 minimal image only to discover that the build became harder and harder to maintain and build.
Issue 1: in order to fix packages, sometimes, you have to keep source on error and try to fix the issue there and then create the patches to fix the main stream. On 8.0 this option worked perfectly. Now i cannot compile anymore and get a segmentation fault whenever i try to rebuild a broken package. Steps to reproduce: a. download and install t2-90.minimal ( tested on x86 and x86_64) b. download via SVN the t2 SDE c. configure a t2 build for x86 with minimal packages and iso installation disk, do not forget to add keep src on error, ccache, print build progress on screen,etc d. download the required packages e. start build At this stage it is more likely that one package will fail at some time. Break the build process (CTRL+C), go to the package failed source folder and: f: execute ./debug.sh ( this will put you presumably in the same environment as the build) g: execute as instructed in the manual $MAKE $MAKEARGS h: observe the segmentation fault message How to fix this? issue 2: udev is a big mess and strange. The implementation of udev in 8.0 was working. The current one does not. I cannot test in a virtual machine ( t2 9.0 currently cannot install on VirtualBox) so i use real hardware for build and test. At boot virtual consoles get messed up all the time. sometimes you miss VC1 3 and 6 and other times you miss 2 and 4 ( the links for agetty not the /dev/ttyX) so that console is unusable. tried fixing it a couple of times but gave up. Also because of this, we get a X respawning too fast disabled for x minutes message now and then on the console. Also a lot of links that are supposed to be created ad boot by udev are not linking. Also if you ever try to put the console in anything else other than 80x25 ( 640x480 default terminal mode) and try to use a higher console resolution you will never be able to do that. 8.0 had that in configured corectly. 9.0 does not. Even if the Penguins appear ( a sign that FB was initialized successfuly) the boot never finishes( on screen) and you have no login prompt on any of the VCs you try to use. How to fix this? issue3: build still does not take into consideration old and already known issues I remember clearly, when i wrote my first guide for building t2 from scratch ( and published it later on with the permission and help of Rene) i outlined that after install, in order to have a correct build environment, you still need to build, perl, m4, python, autoconf,etc. The issue persists on the current 9.0 minimal. I still have to build at least m4, python and others just to have a stable build environment. Also i remember once arguing when building GCC ( for x86 and x86_64) that i get an error about unknown memory model for jumps. To fix this you have to use the -disable-sjlj-exceptions in configure params for GCC. No way of getting around this exception and, to be honest, it is buried too deep inside GCC internals to try to figure out why it's not detecting the correct memory model and build correct jump code.So for now, on x86 at least, you have to use the disable switch to build a working compiler. Again i remember e-mailing this to the group but no response was received. issue4: updated packages break more than fix i really know we are all in a rush to get the distribution up to a point ( a more recent one) but i think we do this at the expense of killing a lot of hours in fixing stuff that breaks other stuff. In this way we end up with something that is anything but stable. I know i am just winging but when i took t2 8.0 it took me 4 weeks to actually learn it, build a workable distribution and improve it slowly but steadily. Right now i am at the 7-nth week of fighting to build the basic X without any bells or whistles. An example of course.... mesa package. it was updated i think last week to a new version. But the new version introduced new dependencies (mako ) which....do not build correctly because Python is lacking other dependencies that are not by default selected if you enable them. Also basic packages which should build correctly and without issues are becoming a nightmare. apr, intltool, freeglut and the list is constantly growing cannot be built anymore in a correct fashion. apr fails for unknown reasons. if you try to build it several times, it will build correctly because there is no fault in there. The build environment either locks files, or does not give permission to use /usr/bin/install or simply say that some file is busy... busy doing what???. Freeglut fails in building a stupid example because it has a DSO error. To build that example, apparently an extra -lGL is required to be added but because there is no way currently to build the package in fix mode i cannot fix the thing.... Finally i admit my limitations. I know how to fix some stuff but for some others i require more experienced assistance. I also know that Rene is most probably overwhelmed with the amount of work he has to do in maintaining this mammoth T2 became. But i would still like to have something solid and workable before we adventure in upgrading and updating stuff. We need a solid base from which to start on. I would really like to see all of us concentrating first on fixing the current distribution to a stable way and later on bringing new stuff in slowly. I understand the need to be more up to date but let's not do that at the expense of destabilizing what we have. We do not benefit from a very large pool of users and if we make the things difficult they will desert the project and it will become harder and harder to go. Regards, JD
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