Re: building old coreutils versions on new glibc systemsy

[Bernhard Voelker]

On 8/3/19 4:30 AM, Assaf Gordon wrote:
> Attached a patch to add these (+ README + build script)
> to a new 'contrib' directory.
> 
> NOTE:
> I had to disable the 'commit-msg' hook (for the 'contrib' prefix)
> and the 'precommit' hook (because the patch files contains spaces at
> end of lines, and lines longer than 80 characters).

The whole stuff could go into 'scripts' instead of a new 'contrib'.

> Not sure if this is valid, or will cause troubles later on.
> An alternative might be to gzip the patches before commiting?
> Ideas welcomed.

Of course, I immediately tried to build and install all versions
which are possible with it since 5.0. ;-)

My observation was that the locale data and the info files were
overwritten by each next version being installed.
Earlier versions' configure script have a slightly different
set of options to control where those files go.  Therefore,
I suggest to simply install each version in it's own
directory beneath PREFIX, e.g. $PREFIX/coreutils-5.0, and
then add symlinks to the executables and manpages to common
$PREFIX/{bin,man} directories which one could add to PATH/MANPATH.
WDYT - the attached does this.

Furthermore, it:
- allows builds of newer versions which don't need a patch (>=8.30).
- adds error handling to trivial cd/mkdir commands,
- builds and installs PDF documentation.

Have a nice day,
Berny

build-older-versions.sh.tar.xz
Description: application/xz