Re: gnustep-make experiment

[Fred Kiefer]

Wim Oudshoorn schrieb:
> Matt Rice <address@hidden> writes:
> 
>> On 2007-02-09 09:18:02 -0800 Wim Oudshoorn <address@hidden> wrote:
>>> So next I tried to download pkg-config version 0.21 and compile it
>>> (on
>>> MS Windows). Of course that failed because I hadn't installed glib.
>>> So
>>> I gave up.  (I tried once to get glib compiled on windows and it
>>> wasn't a pleasant experience.)
>>>
>> It does not require anything but a reasonably well working C compiler
>> and a C library,
>> but can use an installed glib if that is present.
> 
> Well, did you actually try compiling pkg-config?  
> I did not investigate deeply but the suggested way of compiling:
> 
> ./configure
> make
> 
> Did not work.  ./configure succeeded splendidly, but make
> failed and the reason was that glib.h could not be found.
> 
> But I don't want to start a discussion in the GNUstep mailing lists on
> how to install pkg-config.   I just wanted to see how it would work on 
> windows.
> 

I wanted to keep out of this discussion, but somehow these resolutions
never work out :-)

First of all there is a pre-compiled pkg-config for Windows on the Gimp
download page, but be warned, I have not used it myself:
http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/pkg-config-0.20.zip

Second, I like the idea of using more standard tools in the GNUstep
configuration and compilation process. pkg-config could come in rather
nicely here. But I don't quite understand, how it could be used as a
replacement for GNUstep.conf. Not that I like the role GNUstep.conf is
currently playing in GNUstep, but this is clearly different from what
pkg-config is normally doing. GNUstep.conf is a file that gets accessed
each time a GNUstep application is run to find out about the various
GNUstep settings. It is there to allow GNUstep installations to be moved
to arbitrary places after compilation. pkf-config is by its intention a
compile time tool. It looks for include paths and libraries and such
stuff. It is not supposed to be around when a compiled application or
libraries is run.

Third, Nicola keeps on claiming in this thread that a standard GNUstep
could be compiled by just setting the values in GNUstep.conf and doing
nothing else. This does not work for me, I still need to source
GNUstep.sh to get things working. Otherwise the compilation of gui
complains that it cannot find the base library. This is not too bad, I
am used to this behaviour. I just wanted to scale back some claims made
here.

Last, I would expect that a standard GNUstep should even run without a
GNUstep.conf file being set up. It may be easier for people who love to
move things to have a template file that they only need to change. But
do we really have to install this template already?

Cheers,
Fred