Re: GSoC Enquiry: Improving binary packaging

[Anirudha Bose]

On Sat, Jun 8, 2013 at 4:19 AM, Michael Goffioul <address@hidden> wrote:

On Thu, Jun 6, 2013 at 2:23 PM, John W. Eaton <address@hidden> wrote:

What are the plans for this project?  I'd like to see us converge on one build system rather than duplicating effort (again). 

 

John, I read your update on cross-compiling update for MinGW systems [1], and I think it is better to improve your work rather than duplicating, like you said.

I followed the instructions in your post but I am stuck with an error while trying to build texinfo. Here is the log: http://pastebin.com/yaUwD9my

[1] http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.octave.maintainers/30358

I know I am guilty of duplicating previous work when I was trying to get Octave to build with a MinGW cross compiler because I didn't really look at what Michael and others had done in the past for building Octave on Windows, but I'd like to see us avoid further duplication of effort.

I would like to know what other efforts had been done before for building Octave on Windows.

I agree that there should be a single build system for "exotic" platforms. And I see this project as a way to merge the existing efforts and converge towards a single system. The project description is on google-melange, but basically there are 2 items on the table: MXE and GUB. The goal is to select one and make it produce binaries for as many platforms as possible.

For MXE, what you've done so far is a good starting point. I understand it's able to cross-compile to Windows from Linux, but also native-compile under Linux and MinGW(?). Anirudha, in your project description, you're stating that MXE cannot be used for OS X. Why is it so? Couldn't jwe's version of MXE be re-used to cross-/native-compile octave?

Jordi had once told me about this. See this discussion [2].

[2] http://octave.1599824.n4.nabble.com/GSoC-2013-td4652333.html

Concerning GUB, I don't know it, so I can't tell. But if jwe's MXE can be used, that would be my first choice, in order to leverage all the work that's already been done.

 

Since a lot of work has already been done in MXE, I think I should go for it rather than starting from scratch using GUB.

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Anirudha