[Bug build/25799] New: python dependency (as strict requirement)

[Bug build/25799] New: python dependency (as strict requirement)

[serg.brester at sebres dot de]

https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=25799

            Bug ID: 25799
           Summary: python dependency (as strict requirement)
           Product: glibc
           Version: unspecified
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: build
          Assignee: unassigned at sourceware dot org
          Reporter: serg.brester at sebres dot de
                CC: carlos at redhat dot com
  Target Milestone: ---

Starting from 
[c6982f7efc1c70fe2d6160a87ee44d871ac85ab0] it is impossible to build glibc
without python (configure would fail, as well as it is added to strict
requirements now), where previously it was only needed to build some manual and
to run some tests.

But python itself needs glibc (to build or start).

This looks like a cyclic dependency, so for example it is interesting whether
it is ever possible now to compile that from scratch.

Commit-link:
https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=commitdiff;h=c6982f7efc1c70fe2d6160a87ee44d871ac85ab0;hp=5c81be53407434ce22b849722a3d691295480016

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[Bug build/25799] python dependency (as strict requirement)

[joseph at codesourcery dot com]

https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=25799

--- Comment #1 from joseph at codesourcery dot com <joseph at codesourcery dot com> ---
Python is needed on the build system, *not* the host for which glibc is 
built.  When bootstrapping for a new target, you already have native 
Python on the build system, then build a cross compiler and glibc for the 
new system, and can then use the cross compiler (or a newly built native 
compiler) to build a native Python for the new target.  This is not a bug.

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[Bug build/25799] python dependency (as strict requirement)

[serg.brester at sebres dot de]

https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=25799

--- Comment #2 from Sergey Brester (aka sebres) <serg.brester at sebres dot de> ---
> When bootstrapping for a new target, you already have native Python on the build system

Unless you don't have native python on build system (or even a host system with
gnu toolchain at all). I did not mean a cross-compiling in my question.
You seem to strange understand the sentence "compile from scratch".

Assume you have ONLY initially built system without anything from GNU (and no
python)...
The question was: is that even possible any more, starting with no gnu software
and compiling everything from scratch?

I tend to interpret your answer as "No" and that the bootstrapping of the gnu
toolchain isn't considered a requirement any more.

I'd only say then - there was "*nix from scratch" once.

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[Bug build/25799] python dependency (as strict requirement)

[joseph at codesourcery dot com]

https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=25799

--- Comment #3 from joseph at codesourcery dot com <joseph at codesourcery dot com> ---
On Tue, 7 Apr 2020, serg.brester at sebres dot de via Glibc-bugs wrote:

> Assume you have ONLY initially built system without anything from GNU (and no
> python)...
> The question was: is that even possible any more, starting with no gnu software
> and compiling everything from scratch?

I'm pretty sure you can build Python with a non-GNU C compiler, if you're 
starting from a proprietary Unix with the OS-provided proprietary C 
compiler (as would have been the typical starting point for people 
building GCC in the 1980s and early 1990s).  To build GCC you do of course 
now need a C++ compiler, but I think the last version of GCC that could be 
built as C works for building current GCC (until GCC moves to requiring 
C++11, at which point the bootstrap sequence from a C compiler will become 
longer).

> I tend to interpret your answer as "No" and that the bootstrapping of the gnu
> toolchain isn't considered a requirement any more.

Look at the Guix / GNU Mes project's work on bootstrapping with a reduced 
binary seed.  Guix / GNU Mes is where such issues are addressed in the GNU 
project, not glibc.  It may not yet be at the point of the starting 
binaries needed being of the size that someone can assemble by hand, but 
that would be a natural end-goal to aim for.

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