Re: [Axiom-developer] directory/truename transition

[Camm Maguire]

Greetings!

I agree 2.6.8 has taken way too long -- my apologies.  

Comments like this:

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gcl-devel/2007-05/msg00036.html

have kept me back, together with lack of time and volunteers, of
course, to address it.

GCL is quite stable, (at least 2.6.x), but is very low-level and
novel, and as such is subject to the same issues confronting atlas,
lapack, etc -- "bit rot".

At the moment, I'm using the Debian package version number and
autobuilders to verify that gcl and all applications build atop the
current toolchain.  I'm about to release 2.6.7-34, which is a current
2.6.8pre snapshot.

As you can see, in Debian stable, we have 2.6.7-32.

2.6.7-33 is failing to build on some platforms due to an ld segfault:

http://buildd.debian.org/build.cgi?pkg=gcl

I'm hoping this is temporary.

Here are the changelog entries through -34:

gcl (2.6.7-34) unstable; urgency=low

  * add read-byte,read-sequence,write-byte,write-sequence support
  * fix some float parsing inaccuracies
  * support GNU_HASH sections, Closes: #426135
  * safety 2 for certain low level functions in gcl_listlib.lsp, CLoses:
    #415266

 -- Camm Maguire <address@hidden>  Wed,  4 Jul 2007 16:23:25 -0400

gcl (2.6.7-33) unstable; urgency=low

  * Fix leading underscore behavior of my_plt
  * add sqrt to plttest.c
  * disable-nls added to the binutils subconfigures to avoid msgfmt
    dependency
  * remove -lintl from powerpc-macosx.defs
  * update to make-user-init from cvs head to support hol88, fix link on
    mingw
  * solaris-i386 support
  * fix read-char-no-hang on mingw
  * fast compile without wrap-literals
  * sigaltstack support
  * fix cerror

 -- Camm Maguire <address@hidden>  Wed, 16 May 2007 12:45:40 -0400


The only thing absolutely critical is the GNU_HASH section support,
without which GCL .o file loading is broken by the latest gcc output. 

In addition, it is likely that the sparc compiler will ICE:

http://buildd.debian.org/fetch.cgi?pkg=gclcvs;ver=2.7.0-75;arch=sparc;stamp=1183559393

meaning that gcl and axiom and maxima and hol88 will not enter testing
until this is fixed or we drop sparc support.

My only plans for 2.6.8 prior to release were:

build verification across all 12.
ensure-directories-exist if and only if axiom must have it
intel mac support
satisfy vadim on mingw.

If axiom would prefer, I can drop the second and third to accelerate a
2.6.8 official .tar.gz

Once everything works, we need 10 days after the slowest machine
completes the build for migration into testing.  We may get some
speedup with high priority, but this setting is routinely ignored if
the package is new in any way.

I for one agree with Tim's definition of what should go in, but dearly
hope we can pull together and incorporate the best ideas into one
place.  As far as Debian goes, one typically needs a .tar.gz released
officially somewhere before one begins.  

So my suggestions:

1) While I iron out the gcl build issues in Debian, Tim hopefully in
   consultation with the other axiom developers finalize a .tar.gz
2) Depending on how long this takes, axiom decides whether to use
   2.6.8 or 2.7.0. (I still have hope that this will be seen as
   preferable soon and I can consolidate and only support one tree.
   But I imagine that it will be at least September should 2.7.0 be
   desired. )
3) I'm hoping the existing contents of debian/ will need little
   change, and only simplification.  I of course welcome any
   suggestions/patches thereto from Ondrej or others interested.
   Is there any reason it won't just work as is?
4) help with bug reports, build issue workarounds, etc. from all most
   appreciated.  There will likely be a period of at least a few weeks
   during which we need to monitor the buildd web pages daily and
   follow up on problems.  If any of you have access to rare machines
   (esp arm, alpha -- several of these are no longer available to
   ordinary Debian devlopers) and have gdb skills, this is most
   useful. 

In any case, I do not think axiom uploads to Debian should occur until
at least gcl and maxima migrate into testing.

Just my quick thoughts -- pardon the incoherence.

Take care,

"Bill Page" <address@hidden> writes:

> On 7/4/07, Tim Daly wrote:
> > ...
> > The current Gold version of Axiom uses GCL-2.6.8pre2 which works
> > fine everywhere.
> 
> What is 'GCL-2.6.8pre2'? I cannot find this tag in the gcl cvs. Did
> you really mean 'GCL-2.6.8pre'?
> 
> http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/gcl/?root=gcl
> 
> I believe that gcl-2.6.8pre is still officially unreleased and subject
> to change. Shouldn't this (finally!) be frozen as release 'gcl-2.6.8'
> before building an official release of Axiom on it?
> 
> In the case of Debian isn't the policy that Axiom must be built using
> only a separately released version of gcl as a dependency? I think
> 'gcl-2.6.7' is still the official release on Debian, right?
> 
> Regards,
> Bill Page.
> 
> 

-- 
Camm Maguire                                            address@hidden
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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."  --  Baha'u'llah