Re: [HEADS UP] packages not supporting destdir

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Sun, 1 Apr 2012 13:24:32 +0200
    From:        Thomas Klausner <wiz%NetBSD.org@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <20120401112432.GB16022%danbala.tuwien.ac.at@localhost>

These two

  | cvsup-16.1.hnb2
  | cvsup-gui-16.1.hnb3

require this one

  | ezm3-1.2nb2

(which itself is useful for nothing other than building cvsup as I
understand it), and so there's no point working on them if ezm3 isn't
fixed first (if ezm3 were removed, cvsup would be unbuildable anyway.)

The ezm3 Makefile (do-build target) says ...

 @${ECHO} "===================================================================";
 @${ECHO} "As per the website, it is NOT possible to separate the build process"
 @${ECHO} "from the installation process."
 @${ECHO} "'${MAKE} install' will build AND install the package."
 @${ECHO} "===================================================================";

(to be honest, I deleted a few ='s in the first and last of those lines
to keep the line lengths of this e-mail shorter).

The website mentioned says ...

    Type "gmake". This will build and install Modula-3. It is not possible
    to separate the build from the installation, and the installed files
    will not work if you move them to a different location.

(step 7 of the installation instructions).

It continues
    That is why you have to do this as root.

(step 6 was to become root).   I suspect that all it probably really
requires is write permission in the installation directories, which
normally means root, but that's irrelevant here.

In any case, all of this looks as if it is simply incompatible with
destdir builds, and so incompatible that the people who distribute the
software just tell you not to bother trying.

I really don't want to see these go, I use cvsup (the gui not often, so
that small part of it is less important) and for that, I need ezm3 (or
perhaps some other modula3 compiler) to build it (for now, exm3 is the only
one I know of in pkgsrc).

What's more, I don't use destdir builds, and have no plans on ever doing so.
I build in a pkg_comp sandbox, which has more or less the same results
(binary packages get built without affecting the real system, then the
binary package can be installed).   That's pretty much what destdir is
doing, though at greater cost, and with more advantages - and could be
really a better solution really, especially if pkg_comp were made able to
null mount the system filesystems (/usr etc) rather than needing to
unpack release sets.

So, even if these never get fixed, please don't remove them, just make them
marked as broken if someone attempts a destdir build of one of them.
For those of us who don't care about destdir, that's fine, for those who
want to use destdir builds, if they ever want one of these packages (and
perhaps any of the others you mentioned) they can look into fixing them
(if that's possible for ezm3, or otherwise perhaps look at what would be
required to make cm3, or something, work).

kre