Automake is not compatible with older Autoconfs we provide

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3 participants

Ekaitz Zarraga
Giovanni Biscuolo
Maxim Cournoyer

Owner: unassigned

Submitted by: Ekaitz Zarraga

Severity: normal

Ekaitz Zarraga wrote on 12 Dec 2023 16:00

Recipients:(name . bug-guix@gnu.org)(address . bug-guix@gnu.org)

Message-ID:c922a420-03ef-7781-5016-5174930ce81f@elenq.tech

Hi,

We have automake packaged, but it's not compatible with older autoconf 
versions so autoconf is not very usable at this point.

```
Ekaitz@tuxedo ~/projects/nlnet/gcc/libstdc++-v3 (riscv)$ guix shell 
automake autoconf@2.64
Ekaitz@tuxedo ~/projects/nlnet/gcc/libstdc++-v3 (riscv) [env]$ 
autoreconf -vif
autoreconf: Entering directory `.'
autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Gettext
autoreconf: running: aclocal --force -I . -I .. -I ../config
configure.ac:74: error: Autoconf version 2.65 or higher is required
/gnu/store/p0c4zj5na8w9hpsp5v5h637wnybx0hb6-automake-1.16.5/share/aclocal-1.16/init.m4:29: 
AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE is expanded from...
configure.ac:74: the top level
autom4te: /gnu/store/n3kxhwi5qdil1vlaq5b6zwyiv7wkrw76-m4-1.4.19/bin/m4 
failed with exit status: 63
aclocal: error: autom4te failed with exit status: 63
autoreconf: aclocal failed with exit status: 63
```

Is this only my thing?

Maxim Cournoyer wrote on 12 Dec 2023 17:59

Recipients:(name . Ekaitz Zarraga)(address . ekaitz@elenq.tech)(address . 67796@debbugs.gnu.org)

Message-ID:87edfrbbmp.fsf@gmail.com

Hi,

Ekaitz Zarraga <ekaitz@elenq.tech> writes:

Toggle quote (25 lines)> Hi,
>
> We have automake packaged, but it's not compatible with older autoconf
> versions so autoconf is not very usable at this point.
>
> ```
> Ekaitz@tuxedo ~/projects/nlnet/gcc/libstdc++-v3 (riscv)$ guix shell
> automake autoconf@2.64
> Ekaitz@tuxedo ~/projects/nlnet/gcc/libstdc++-v3 (riscv) [env]$
> autoreconf -vif
> autoreconf: Entering directory `.'
> autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Gettext
> autoreconf: running: aclocal --force -I . -I .. -I ../config
> configure.ac:74: error: Autoconf version 2.65 or higher is required
> /gnu/store/p0c4zj5na8w9hpsp5v5h637wnybx0hb6-automake-1.16.5/share/aclocal-1.16/init.m4:29:
> AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE is expanded from...
> configure.ac:74: the top level
> autom4te: /gnu/store/n3kxhwi5qdil1vlaq5b6zwyiv7wkrw76-m4-1.4.19/bin/m4
> failed with exit status: 63
> aclocal: error: autom4te failed with exit status: 63
> autoreconf: aclocal failed with exit status: 63
> ```
>
> Is this only my thing?

'guix show automake' shows we also have automake 1.9.6 available.  I
suppose this still works with the older autoconf?

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim

Ekaitz Zarraga wrote on 12 Dec 2023 20:47

Automake is not compatible with older Autoconfs we provide

Recipients:

Message-ID:e231e380-e316-7f8b-a3fe-6e1b0fc8b97f@elenq.tech

Maxim,

> 'guix show automake' shows we also have automake 1.9.6 available. I

suppose this still works with the older autoconf?

I don't have that automake version and I can't find it Guix's codebase.

Are you up to date with master?

Best,

Ekaitz

Maxim Cournoyer wrote on 12 Dec 2023 21:47

Recipients:(name . Ekaitz Zarraga)(address . ekaitz@elenq.tech)(address . 67796@debbugs.gnu.org)

Message-ID:87plzb9mhr.fsf@gmail.com

Hi,

Ekaitz Zarraga <ekaitz@elenq.tech> writes:

Toggle quote (8 lines)

> Maxim,

>> 'guix show automake' shows we also have automake 1.9.6 available. I

> suppose this still works with the older autoconf?

> I don't have that automake version and I can't find it Guix's

> codebase. Are you up to date with master?

Oh, indeed, I wasn't.  Only 1.16.5 remains.  I'm not sure which commit
removed it.

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim

Giovanni Biscuolo wrote on 11 Jan 10:42 +0100

Re: bug#67796: Automake is not compatible with older Autoconfs we provide

Recipients:

Message-ID:87mstcb40b.fsf@xelera.eu

Hi Ekaitz

Ekaitz Zarraga <ekaitz@elenq.tech> writes:

Toggle quote (9 lines)

> Hi,

> We have automake packaged, but it's not compatible with older autoconf

> versions so autoconf is not very usable at this point.

> ```

> Ekaitz@tuxedo ~/projects/nlnet/gcc/libstdc++-v3 (riscv)$ guix shell

> automake autoconf@2.64

is there a reason you need to "pin" to the 2.64 version?

[...]

Toggle quote (2 lines)

> configure.ac:74: error: Autoconf version 2.65 or higher is required

we now have autoconf-2.68 and -2.69 and autoconf is autoconf-2.69

does this solve the issue you reported?

Happy hacking, Gio'

Giovanni Biscuolo

Xelera IT Infrastructures

Ekaitz Zarraga wrote on 11 Jan 11:40 +0100

Recipients:

Message-ID:86a3869a-0968-3c30-45e7-1f493dcbb63c@elenq.tech

Hi,

On 2024-01-11 10:42, Giovanni Biscuolo wrote:

Toggle quote (14 lines)> Hi Ekaitz
> 
> Ekaitz Zarraga <ekaitz@elenq.tech> writes:
> 
>> Hi,
>>
>> We have automake packaged, but it's not compatible with older autoconf
>> versions so autoconf is not very usable at this point.
>>
>> ```
>> Ekaitz@tuxedo ~/projects/nlnet/gcc/libstdc++-v3 (riscv)$ guix shell
>> automake autoconf@2.64
> 
> is there a reason you need to "pin" to the 2.64 version?

I had one, I was working on GCC bootstrapping... It's not a big deal if 
we just remove the older versions.

The problem I wanted to make us notice is we were keeping the 2.64 
version and we didn't really provide any compatible automake, so the 
autoconf@2.64 was almost useless.

If no package uses those, it's ok to remove. I can always time-machine 
around the problem.

Thanks!

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Giovanni Biscuolo wrote on 12 Jan 19:38 +0100

Recipients:

Message-ID:87h6jibdnk.fsf@xelera.eu

Hi,

Ekaitz Zarraga <ekaitz@elenq.tech> writes:

[...]

Toggle quote (11 lines)>>> We have automake packaged, but it's not compatible with older autoconf
>>> versions so autoconf is not very usable at this point.
>>>
>>> ```
>>> Ekaitz@tuxedo ~/projects/nlnet/gcc/libstdc++-v3 (riscv)$ guix shell
>>> automake autoconf@2.64
>> 
>> is there a reason you need to "pin" to the 2.64 version?
>
> I had one, I was working on GCC bootstrapping...

oh OK :-)

Toggle quote (2 lines)

> It's not a big deal if we just remove the older versions.

but if they are needed for bootstrapping they should be kept around, no?

Toggle quote (4 lines)

> The problem I wanted to make us notice is we were keeping the 2.64

> version and we didn't really provide any compatible automake, so the

> autoconf@2.64 was almost useless.

I'm not very familiar with Autoconf and Automake (nor with

bootstrapping): is there a "compatibility table" around? I quickly had

a look to the respective manuals but I was not able to find one.

Toggle quote (3 lines)

> If no package uses those, it's ok to remove. I can always time-machine

> around the problem.

OK old packages can always (almost) be time-machined back but if they

are needed for bootstrapping (for sexample if your work on GCC

bootstrapping is succesful) they should be in Guix proper, no?

is this a bug? :-)

Thanks for your work! Gio'

Giovanni Biscuolo

Xelera IT Infrastructures

Ekaitz Zarraga wrote on 12 Jan 19:53 +0100

Recipients:

Message-ID:2a4834ce-1289-6eb2-e104-53f320a235d4@elenq.tech

Hi,

On 2024-01-12 19:38, Giovanni Biscuolo wrote:

Toggle quote (4 lines)

>> It's not a big deal if we just remove the older versions.

> but if they are needed for bootstrapping they should be kept around, no?

No, because they are not needed for the bootstrapping itself. We build

stuff from scratch for it, I needed them to rebuild the configure

scripts on GCC, which I don't need to rebuild anymore (GCC's codebase

includes the configure scripts prebuilt). That's where I realized.

Toggle quote (8 lines)

>> The problem I wanted to make us notice is we were keeping the 2.64

>> version and we didn't really provide any compatible automake, so the

>> autoconf@2.64 was almost useless.

> I'm not very familiar with Autoconf and Automake (nor with

> bootstrapping): is there a "compatibility table" around? I quickly had

> a look to the respective manuals but I was not able to find one.

I don't know either. I tried to use the 2.64 one and that told me the

Automake wasn't compatible.

Toggle quote (9 lines)

>> If no package uses those, it's ok to remove. I can always time-machine

>> around the problem.

> OK old packages can always (almost) be time-machined back but if they

> are needed for bootstrapping (for sexample if your work on GCC

> bootstrapping is succesful) they should be in Guix proper, no?

> is this a bug? :-)

The problem in my opinion is including a 2.64 autoconf that we can't run

actually use for the lack of a compatible automake. Not providing it is

a better option. I don't need it for bootstrapping recipes, and if I

need it in the future I'll remake the package.

If Autoconf 2.64 is not needed by any package my proposal is to remove

it from Guix and let the people interested on it to `time-machine`, as

that's going to probably have the correct automake with it.

Toggle quote (2 lines)

> Thanks for your work! Gio'

Thank you!

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