Re: Packaging insight for debian

Re: Packaging insight for debian

[Eray 'exa' Ozkural]

Syd Polk wrote:
> 
> Factoring out the internal versions of tcl/tk is not a good idea. We have
local
> changes to these which could cause random failures, particularly when
running
> the test suite.
> 

Do you think making major changes to a forked tcl/tk is a good idea?
Also, this didn't seem to play very nicely with the debian way of
doing things. Which of course goes something like "if you use a
general-purpose lib or lang. make it available in a generally usable
and uniform way" This is how we cope with perl or tcl/tk. What would
debian be like if every perl application distributed its own perl with it?

A suggestion thus put forth was to put the cygnus versions of those
libs in some place like /usr/lib/insight, but it didn't prove to
be easier than factoring out the libs which seemed to be the right-er
way of doing things.

Anyhow, cygnus's changes to tcl/tk are not major extensions or anything
really new. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to port it to tcl/tk 8.3
It now works, and is probably bug-compatible with the pristine
cygnus (red hat) version. And if you'd tell me that you might be
introducing something major in the future, you'd better introduce it
into the upstream version of tcl/tk. ;) 

I'd be glad if you could give the package I made a try. Most of the
cygnus changes are build-related, and not very relevant to tcl/tk itself.
(or any of its extensions that insight uses)

I didn't just strip insight:
<<
orion:debian$ cat strip-insight 
#! /bin/bash

cd insight-5.0

rm -rf opcodes libiberty opcodes etc texinfo tcl tk itcl itk tix
<<

I left readline, intl, and bfd in there. Was a bit hesitant about
bfd actually but then you can tell me whether this is the same thing
as in binutils-2.10.0.26 :) Is it? I've managed to strip bfd too in
an experimental package, so if they're the same version I can safely
let it be that way.

> Shipping the two versions. The next version of SN will have the same
version as
> Insight, and will have been tested correctly.

That will be a bit difficult, but I'll try to do that. Are they
separate branches or just different versions of the same thing, and
any major differences between the two?

Insight is a very nice debugger [interface], and I'd like to thank all
developers from cygnus and red hat; we just want to have a proper
debian version. :)

Looking forward to your remarks,

Thanks,


PS: By the way, I've understood how difficult it might be to debug a debugger.
Kudos for all the hard work!

PS2: I'm having to mail this from a remote machine because my ISP's
mail server is on the ORBS. Is the only way to talk to the mail admin
at my ISP?

-- 
Eray (exa) Ozkural
Comp. Sci. Dept., Bilkent University, Ankara
e-mail: erayo@cs.bilkent.edu.tr
www: http://www.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~erayo

Re: Packaging insight for debian

[Chris Faylor]

On Mon, Oct 09, 2000 at 08:32:18PM +0300, Eray 'exa' Ozkural wrote:
>Syd Polk wrote:
>> 
>> Factoring out the internal versions of tcl/tk is not a good idea. We have
>local
>> changes to these which could cause random failures, particularly when
>running
>> the test suite.
>> 
>
>Do you think making major changes to a forked tcl/tk is a good idea?

No, we don't think this is a good idea.  We're looking to minimize this
however we have to take other platforms besides linux into
consideration.

>Also, this didn't seem to play very nicely with the debian way of
>doing things. Which of course goes something like "if you use a
>general-purpose lib or lang. make it available in a generally usable
>and uniform way" This is how we cope with perl or tcl/tk. What would
>debian be like if every perl application distributed its own perl with it?

No one is advocating one library per application.  The version of tcl/tk
that comes with insight has some cygnus mods that we (i.e., Syd) are
trying to factor out and simplify but they can't be removed entirely.

>Anyhow, cygnus's changes to tcl/tk are not major extensions or anything
>really new.

Some of the changes deal with Cygwin.  Did your change to 8.3 accomodate
these changes?  I'll bet that they didn't.

>Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to port it to tcl/tk 8.3 It now works,
>and is probably bug-compatible with the pristine cygnus (red hat)
>version.

We support quite a few more platforms than Red Hat Linux.  So ensuring
that something works on Red Hat Linux is only a fraction of the battle
won.

>And if you'd tell me that you might be introducing something major in
>the future, you'd better introduce it into the upstream version of
>tcl/tk.  ;)

We have every plan to do this.

>PS2: I'm having to mail this from a remote machine because my ISP's
>mail server is on the ORBS. Is the only way to talk to the mail admin
>at my ISP?

That's the correct way.  Yes.

For tips on this, check out:

http://sources.redhat.com/lists.html#unsubscribe-desperate , item #7.

cgf

Re: Packaging insight for debian

[Syd Polk]

At 08:32 PM 10/9/00 +0300, Eray 'exa' Ozkural wrote:
>Syd Polk wrote:
> >
> > Factoring out the internal versions of tcl/tk is not a good idea. We have
>local
> > changes to these which could cause random failures, particularly when
>running
> > the test suite.
> >
>
>Do you think making major changes to a forked tcl/tk is a good idea?

No, it is not a good idea. Unfortunately, it has been this way for quite 
some time, and requires manpower to fix. We are working on fixing it, but 
it is slow going.

>Also, this didn't seem to play very nicely with the debian way of
>doing things. Which of course goes something like "if you use a
>general-purpose lib or lang. make it available in a generally usable
>and uniform way" This is how we cope with perl or tcl/tk. What would
>debian be like if every perl application distributed its own perl with it?

The problem is when somebody upgrades the tcl/tk or perl version and breaks 
your application.

>A suggestion thus put forth was to put the cygnus versions of those
>libs in some place like /usr/lib/insight, but it didn't prove to
>be easier than factoring out the libs which seemed to be the right-er
>way of doing things.

While being "right" in the long term, we cannot support it because it has 
not been tested.

>Anyhow, cygnus's changes to tcl/tk are not major extensions or anything
>really new. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to port it to tcl/tk 8.3
>It now works, and is probably bug-compatible with the pristine
>cygnus (red hat) version. And if you'd tell me that you might be
>introducing something major in the future, you'd better introduce it
>into the upstream version of tcl/tk. ;)

The main thing is that tcl/tk 8.3 does not build for cygwin in a cross 
environment. While this is not really a concern for debian, it is a concern 
for us.

Plus, regular expressions changed between tcl 8.1 and 8.2, and that could 
break some of the code in interesting ways.

Have you run "make check" from the gdb build directory? You should compare 
the results with our version of tcl/tk and with your version; they should 
be the same.

>I'd be glad if you could give the package I made a try. Most of the
>cygnus changes are build-related, and not very relevant to tcl/tk itself.
>(or any of its extensions that insight uses)
>
>I didn't just strip insight:
><<
>orion:debian$ cat strip-insight
>#! /bin/bash
>
>cd insight-5.0
>
>rm -rf opcodes libiberty opcodes etc texinfo tcl tk itcl itk tix
><<
>
>I left readline, intl, and bfd in there. Was a bit hesitant about
>bfd actually but then you can tell me whether this is the same thing
>as in binutils-2.10.0.26 :) Is it? I've managed to strip bfd too in
>an experimental package, so if they're the same version I can safely
>let it be that way.

The bfd that ships with insight is more current than binutils-2.10.0.26. 
However, this is more cygwin stuff. You may not share.


> > Shipping the two versions. The next version of SN will have the same
>version as
> > Insight, and will have been tested correctly.
>
>That will be a bit difficult, but I'll try to do that. Are they
>separate branches or just different versions of the same thing, and
>any major differences between the two?

Actually, I lied. Insight is based on tcl 8.0.5, and sn is based on tcl 
8.1. We will have the entire system upgraded to 8.3.2 at some point in the 
future. It is also our goal to use whatever version of Tcl/Tk is installed; 
however, this is some months away.

>Insight is a very nice debugger [interface], and I'd like to thank all
>developers from cygnus and red hat; we just want to have a proper
>debian version. :)
>
>Looking forward to your remarks,
>
>Thanks,
>
>
>PS: By the way, I've understood how difficult it might be to debug a debugger.
>Kudos for all the hard work!
>
>PS2: I'm having to mail this from a remote machine because my ISP's
>mail server is on the ORBS. Is the only way to talk to the mail admin
>at my ISP?
>
>--
>Eray (exa) Ozkural
>Comp. Sci. Dept., Bilkent University, Ankara
>e-mail: erayo@cs.bilkent.edu.tr
>www: http://www.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~erayo

Syd Polk		spolk@redhat.com
Engineering Manager	+1 415 777 9810 x 241
Red Hat, Inc.

Re: Packaging insight for debian

[Syd Polk]

Eray 'exa' Ozkural wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I've been working on Debian packages for insight-5.0, and so
> far I've ported the build system to use the debian tcl/tk8.3
> packages and stripped insight accordingly.

Factoring out the internal versions of tcl/tk is not a good idea. We have local
changes to these which could cause random failures, particularly when running
the test suite.
 
> I've however been recommended to ask upstream maintainers'
> opinions which I'm doing now since I have something working. :)
> 
> I have two questions:
> 
>  1) Should I follow up on development releases or "point" releases?
>  2) There seem to be some discrepancies between the libgui that
>     sourcenav-4.5.2 uses and the one in insight-5.0. I was thinking
>     of making libgui into a separate package. What do you recommend?

Shipping the two versions. The next version of SN will have the same version as
Insight, and will have been tested correctly.
 
>  A somewhat current build for woody is available at
>  http://pccluster.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~exa/debian/
> 
>  which should be aptable as
> 
>  deb http://pccluster.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~exa/debian/ .
> 
>  Thanks,
> 
> --
> Eray (exa) Ozkural
> Comp. Sci. Dept., Bilkent University, Ankara
> e-mail: erayo@cs.bilkent.edu.tr
> www: http://www.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~erayo

Packaging insight for debian

[Eray 'exa' Ozkural]

Hi,

I've been working on Debian packages for insight-5.0, and so
far I've ported the build system to use the debian tcl/tk8.3
packages and stripped insight accordingly.

I've however been recommended to ask upstream maintainers'
opinions which I'm doing now since I have something working. :)

I have two questions:

 1) Should I follow up on development releases or "point" releases?
 2) There seem to be some discrepancies between the libgui that
    sourcenav-4.5.2 uses and the one in insight-5.0. I was thinking
    of making libgui into a separate package. What do you recommend?
	  
 A somewhat current build for woody is available at
 http://pccluster.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~exa/debian/
	  
 which should be aptable as
	  
 deb http://pccluster.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~exa/debian/ .
	  
 Thanks,
	  
-- 
Eray (exa) Ozkural
Comp. Sci. Dept., Bilkent University, Ankara
e-mail: erayo@cs.bilkent.edu.tr
www: http://www.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~erayo