Re: not gcc, but python and dependencies

[Paul Ackersviller <pda%sdf.org@localhost>]

On Fri, Aug 09, 2013 at 09:13:23AM +0100, Jonathan Perkin wrote:
> * On 2013-08-09 at 03:47 BST, Paul Ackersviller wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, Aug 08, 2013 at 08:51:54AM +0200, Hauke Fath wrote:
> > > At 3:01 Uhr +0000 8.8.2013, Paul Ackersviller wrote:
> > > >> The most common cause is when you don't use an external compiler, and
> > > >> of course you can't build lang/gcc* without first building its
> > > >> dependencies, which need a compiler...
> > > >
> > > >Not the problem here, as I've never even been able to build gcc from 
> > > >pkgsrc.
> > > 
> > > What problems did you run into?

I haven't taken the time to look into this further yet, but I can
confirm that none of the verions from 2013Q2 is building on HP-UX.

> > I shouldn't say too much since it's a year or so since I've tried,
> > but from what I recall many problems cascaded from python not building
> > on HP-UX.  Python was horribly painful to get going there last year,
> > but I see the current 2.7.5 looks much more promising so far.
> 
> Right, I had a horrid time trying to get any recent-ish version of
> Python building on HP/UX a few years ago, and had to settle on running
> an older 2.5 and modifying our code to support that.
> 
> Great if a newer version helps, though.

Unfortunately I spoke to soon on this.  Python's build has the annoying
habit of a successful exit status even when may of the critical modules
didn't compile.  None of this is pkgsrc's problem as far as I can tell.

> > Assuming my memory is not faulty on this, is there some good reason
> > why gcc should depend on python?
> 
> None at all, at least in a default configuration.  We depend heavily
> on GCC from pkgsrc, and so have wired down its dependencies to avoid
> circular problems, and python has never shown up here.

That was likely just me mis-remembering what I'd done before.  What I do
see now is that hardly any X libraries will build on HP-UX because of
indirect dependency on python.  The most direct one looks to be libxcb,
which cascades into loads of further failures.

I'd certainly like python to work better on HP-UX, so will attempt to
help it out with some patches.  That'll likely take some to work out...
I'm wondering if, in the meantime, there might be ways for pkgsrc to
have fewer dependencies on python.  Anyone have pointers for this?