Re: Where are we on changing python from 37 to 38?

[nia <nia%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

The problem on CentOS 7 seems to be in the build envrionment.

The platform has POSIX semaphores support...

checking for sem_open... yes
checking for sem_timedwait... yes
checking for sem_getvalue... yes
checking for sem_unlink... yes

but, this is the configure test that fails:

checking whether POSIX semaphores are enabled... no

Looking at autoconf.ac, this configure test attempts to run a program
that uses sem_open. 

# For multiprocessing module, check that sem_open
# actually works.  For FreeBSD versions <= 7.2,
# the kernel module that provides POSIX semaphores
# isn't loaded by default, so an attempt to call
# sem_open results in a 'Signal 12' error.

I'm not sure the kernel module part is relevant on Linux.

According to https://bugs.python.org/issue21704, the test can fail on
Linux when /dev/shm is not mounted.

But it's also possible the configure test is broken. Hard to tell
without config.log from the build machine. IMO, configure scripts
should not attempt to run test programs like this...

jperkin?