Subject: Re: getting clisp to build... please help!
To: Paul NCC/CS <pts@bom.gov.au>
From: Jon Buller <jon@bullers.net>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 11/04/2002 22:10:26
In message <3DC73762.6BC4A7C2@bom.gov.au>, Paul NCC/CS writes:

>I'm still trying to get clisp to build but I'm stumped so
>could someone please give me some help and just point
>me in the direction of somewhere where I could help
>myself please?  I don't know what else to do at the moment.

I tried this a few months ago, also without much luck.

>Because pkgsrc failed:
>I tried to download the raw tarball from "clisp.cons.org"
>and install it using their instructions. But it bombed in
>a similar fashion that it does when I try to build it using
>pkgsrc.    It's basically during the configure script in the
>raw tarball build.

Yup. It works on i386 (and I think macppc) but not on a sparc.  I
went a little farther and asked for help on one of the CLISP mail
lists.  IIRC, it has something to do with some structures, their
alignment/padding, and the way the CLISP code wants to deal with
it.

They did not like the fact that "cc --version" reported egcs 1.1.2
(or whatever the exact version was.)  I got two recommendations:
1) get a newer compiler and tell us what that does. and 2) use the
latest version (2.30?).  Neither were much help at all, building
a new version of gcc just for that was too much trouble, and the
latest release wasn't any better than the pkgsrc stuff.  I haven't
pestered them since, since the attitude seemed to be "We don't care
about junk like that, if you use a real compiler/machine we probably
will."

I've since upgraded to 1.6 and had the same problem.  (At least I
think I did, it's been a few days, and I have too many higher
priority things right now to give it very many resources.)  When
I get a little spare time, I plan to tell them their stuff is broken
with current compilers too, and see what happens.

Executive summary seems to be: 1) The CLISP stuff is broken, 2)
they don't want to believe it.  3) They may believe it if you use
a new enough compiler and gripe enough.

Jon

PS When does GCC 3.2 (or newer) get imported so I can try building
-current (and maybe CLISP too) on my pc532? 8^)