Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 09:08:51 -0800 From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> To: "M. L. Dodson" <bdodson@beowulf.utmb.edu> Cc: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: sysinstall Message-ID: <199812161708.JAA00347@dingo.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 15 Dec 1998 09:07:18 CST." <199812151507.JAA27744@beowulf.utmb.edu>
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> Mike Smith writes: > > Can you clarify for us why having g77 in the base system, rather than > > an easily-installable and easily-upgradeable port would be worthwhile? > > > > Our current drive is to increase, not decrease, the modularity of the > > system where possible; an addition like this would have to have a > > compelling justification that was key to the system's functionality to > > be considered. > > I'm absolutely sympathetic with a desire for modularity. The > problem is specific to g77 (and, possibly, to other of the > optional gnu compilers). You can't just install g77; you have to > take, at least, a custom version of gcc along with it. That > means that you have to juggle your path in order to pick up the > correct versions of everything. Let me point out that people > using this compiler are not likely to be as knowledgable as your > ordinary "hackers" subscriber. I have had success getting things > done in spite of this behavior, but it is a royal PITA. Not to > mention the possible differences in code generation between the > system gcc and the g77-specific gcc. I beg to differ; if you look at the current g77 port, it contains two files: bin/g77 and libexec/f771. With the port's bin directory on your path, 'g77' suffices to compile Fortran code as expected, and there are no other changes to the compilation of other code. No path juggling is required, nor anything that is beyond anyone that is already using any other port. > I guess another way of expressing my "problem" is that I would > like g77 available to me in the same high quality way that the > rest of the base FreeBSD is available to me. I don't perceive > that to be the case now. For instance, I have never had any luck > with the g77 ports. For various reasons, perhaps now fixed (I > haven't tried in more than a year), they just never worked > (perhaps I never had the right combinations of versions of > everything needed?). I have always had to get the gcc or egcs > sources and go through the regular gnu installation procedure > (although the egcs port seems to work OK now). That seems to me > an inferior way to go about things. I can't bear witness to this; I've deployed the 'g77' port for a number of customers now with no effort whatsoever, usually just pkg_adding the package and then forgetting about it. The port *is* currently marked BROKEN, which would indicate that it's crying out for a Fortran-using maintainer to step in and fix it, but there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it in its current organisation AFAICT. -- \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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