"My own experience of compiling netbsd ports (xemacs, mozilla, kaffe, etc.)
is that generally you need to figure out how the program works, at least
the weird runtime stuff that tends to break, and do a bit of debugging in
order to get it running!!"

Well, hopefully in a few months I'll be to that point...   But right now I
am a beginner trying to learn UNIX (NetBSD in particular), C, and the
multitude of tools required to do anything useful with the former.  One of
the reasons I chose NetBSD was that in addition to having a stable, working
port for my DECStation, it is also supposed to have a user-friendly package
distribution system that takes a lot of the mystery and black-magic out of
the typical UNIX software installation.  For instance...  I was able to get
mozilla running without having to know anything about "wierd runtime
stuff"...  Granted, there must be some compile option left on someplace in
the code that keeps sending annoying debug screens up while I'm running
it... but it *does* work.

Understand, I don't expect free software to be bug free, and I expect to put
whatever reasonable effort is necessary on my part in order to get it
running.  But honestly, I think that much of the software in the package
distribution is missing documentation that could greatly ease the learning
curve required for the more novice users of the OS.  (Side note:  perhaps a
gang of newbies trying to install packages on various different ports could
provide useful feedback for the port and package masters?  If so I would be
willing to lend time to such an effort.  It might be the best way to
identify what documentation is working, and what needs improvement.)

Speaking of which...  Why is it that every time a question is posed in a
NetBSD forum... Someone comes back with the inevitable "have you read the
man page on that?" question?.  I suppose there are those people out there
who are too lazy to have checked the appropriate FAQ's and man pages before
asking a question...  however, I suggest that you take a look at the FAQ and
manpages in general and ask yourself...  "If I was just starting with NetBSD
and UNIX in general today...  would I have a *clue* what was meant by most
of the greek contained in those documents?".  Or even have a clue where to
look to find what you need?   (Yes... I found the apropos command early and
have made frequent use of it...)

That having been said, I'd like to point out that overall I have been
extremely impressed with NetBSD as a whole, and plan to continue using it as
my platform of choice for learning UNIX.

As a final closing note... perhaps it would be useful to add a mailing list
called netbsd-newbies, a forum in which it would be okay to post a message,
even if you didn't have the skills required to program a micro-kernal in
your sleep....

Rob Mohr

(P.S.  Bob, thanks for your reply...  I hope you realize that this message
was not aimed at you...  There was nothing wrong with your reply, other than
the fact it totally ignored the statement that I haven't a clue what to do
with a makefile that doesn't work...)

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Lantz [mailto:lantz@Stanford.EDU]
Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2000 6:20 PM
To: Robert D. Mohr
Cc: port-pmax@netbsd.org
Subject: Re: Kaffe 1.0.5 build failure - NetBSD 1.4.2 (mips,pmax)


A while back, I was able to get an older version of kaffe built and
running successfully, including the jit, with a patch posted to this list
(see below - sorry for line wraps.) Unfortunately, 1.0.5 seems to be
broken for mips/netbsd. Using similar hacks (munging config files based on
sgi and linux/mips config files) I was able to compile 1.0.5, but not run
it.

My own experience of compiling netbsd ports (xemacs, mozilla, kaffe, etc.)
is that generally you need to figure out how the program works, at least
the weird runtime stuff that tends to break, and do a bit of debugging in
order to get it running!! The advantage and disadvantage of
fix-it-yourself software....

It would be nice to have kaffe 1.0.5 working, though. It's too bad that it
works on irix and linux/mips but not netbsd!!

Bob

On Sat, 15 Apr 2000, Robert D. Mohr wrote:

> Kaffe 1.0.5 is failing to build from the NetBSD package distribution on my
> DECStation 3100 running NetBSD 1.4.2.  I gather from past posts to this
list
> that the JIT is not currently supported on the mips platform.  Apparently
> the NetBSD port is not disabling this in the Makefile, as the build is
> failing while attempting to build jit3.  I've captured a log of the events
> proceding the failure so that someone may verify that my interpretation is
> correct.  I'm sure there is an easy fix for this, but I am a novice at
> editing makefiles, especially ones which are part of a package
distribution
> system such as is being used by NetBSD.
>
> Would anyone care to lend a hand and point me in the right direction to
> correct this?  Thanks in advance for any help you can offer,
>
> Rob Mohr


--- config/mips/netbsd1/md.h.org        Sun Jun 13 19:47:28 1999
+++ config/mips/netbsd1/md.h    Sun Jun 13 22:05:22 1999
@@ -12,6 +12,13 @@
 #ifndef __mips_netbsd1_md_h
 #define __mips_netbsd1_md_h

+#define _MIPS_SIM _MIPS_SIM_ABI32
+
+#include "mips/common.h"
 #include "mips/threads.h"
+
+#undef  SP_OFFSET
+
+#define SP_OFFSET       32

 #endif



--- config/mips/netbsd1/md.c.org        Sun Jun 13 19:48:09 1999
+++ config/mips/netbsd1/md.c    Sun Jun 13 19:55:42 1999
@@ -8,3 +8,9 @@
  * See the file "license.terms" for information on usage and
redistribution
  * of this file.
  */
+
+#define _MIPS_SIM _MIPS_SIM_ABI32
+
+#include "mips/common.h"
+
+#include "mips/mips.c"