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My main gripe with autotools these days is that there seems to be no standard mechanism for specifying non-standard locations for dependencies. (Or if there is

by Pinus 6y ago

My main gripe with autotools these days is that there seems to be no standard mechanism for specifying non-standard locations for dependencies. (Or if there is, that no packages use it...) If I build something from source, it is nearly always because I want a newer version than what is available from the appropriate package repositories, which usually means that I will want newer versions of the dependencies too, or because I want a built-from-source version of one of those dependencies. If I'm really lucky, pkg-config will pick them up. Sometimes just setting LDFLAGS=-L/my/build CPPFLAGS=-I/my/build will work. Sometimes I have to say --with-gnomovision=/my/build, sometimes I will have to say --with-gnomovision-includes=/my/build/include, ...

jnxx 6y ago
If you want to build and install custom packages which in turn depend on libraries which are newer than system packages, this sounds like a perfect use case for GNU Guix as a package manager (e.g. on top of Debian or Arch): http://guix.gnu.org/cookbook/en/guix-cookbook.html#Advanced-package-management http://guix.gnu.org/cookbook/en/guix-cookbook.html#Advanced-... With this, you can create isolated environments in which you can work on specific software, and use and go back to arbitrary versions, without cluttering the base system with local installations. One of the best features is that defining an additional package oneself is merely an extension of the package definitions available with Guix: https://guix.gnu.org/cookbook/en/html_node/Packaging-Tutorial.html https://guix.gnu.org/cookbook/en/html_node/Packaging-Tutoria... And, of course, it works well with autotools....
- jnxx 6y ago
  Just to add, Guix configuration does not only look declarative - it uses a mostly functional language in a side-effect style to define the builds, in the same way as NixOS, just with a language which is established, well-supported, minimal, and elegant. One of the advantages is that this functional package definitions define very clearly what is provided by a package. It also works well for other languages like Rust or Clojure.
arthur2e5 6y ago
I think this is something to be solved with pkg-config(1). Autotools already uses pkg-config to find dependencies and query for any extra flags needed, and with PKG_CONFIG_PATH you can have the program prioritize your own installation.

by Pinus 6y ago

jnxx 6y ago

If you want to build and install custom packages which in turn depend on libraries which are newer than system packages, this sounds like a perfect use case for GNU Guix as a package manager (e.g. on top of Debian or Arch): http://guix.gnu.org/cookbook/en/guix-cookbook.html#Advanced-package-management http://guix.gnu.org/cookbook/en/guix-cookbook.html#Advanced-... With this, you can create isolated environments in which you can work on specific software, and use and go back to arbitrary versions, without cluttering the base system with local installations. One of the best features is that defining an additional package oneself is merely an extension of the package definitions available with Guix: https://guix.gnu.org/cookbook/en/html_node/Packaging-Tutorial.html https://guix.gnu.org/cookbook/en/html_node/Packaging-Tutoria... And, of course, it works well with autotools....

jnxx 6y ago
Just to add, Guix configuration does not only look declarative - it uses a mostly functional language in a side-effect style to define the builds, in the same way as NixOS, just with a language which is established, well-supported, minimal, and elegant. One of the advantages is that this functional package definitions define very clearly what is provided by a package. It also works well for other languages like Rust or Clojure.

arthur2e5 6y ago

I think this is something to be solved with pkg-config(1). Autotools already uses pkg-config to find dependencies and query for any extra flags needed, and with PKG_CONFIG_PATH you can have the program prioritize your own installation.