Re: Is there a way to tell automake to not include rules for building .ps files from a .texi?

[Stefano Lattarini]

On 05/01/2013 08:53 PM, Rick Jones wrote:
> On 05/01/2013 10:54 AM, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
>> On 05/01/2013 06:47 PM, Rick Jones wrote:
>>> Why is a good question.  I am the messenger in this case.  I'm not sure
>>> that the .ps actually makes successfully for the netperf manual, but I
>>> do not know that to be the reason for the request.
>>>
>> Ah, OK.  We don't shoot the messenger ;-)
> 
> Well, that's no fun for you :)
> 
>>> Indeed, a "make netperf.ps" fails - there are a boatload of messages
>>> about over and underful hboxes, and the end is:
>>>
>>> Transcript written on netperf.log.
>>> /usr/bin/texi2dvi: no such file or directory: netperf.dvi
>>> make: *** [netperf.dvi] Error 1
>>>
>> Stop, this is saying that the building of the *DVI* itself has failed.
>> (Then of course one won't be able to build the PostScript: that is
>> generated from the DVI...).  My guess is that this isn't an automake
>> issue, but a texi2dvi one --- I don't know whether due to a bug in
>> texi2dvi or in the netperf's texinfo files.
> 
> Given that I find texinfo to be black magic (I update the netperf manual
> maybe a couple times a year at most) the latter is entirely possible.
> 
>> And there is another thing to consider: Automake 1.13 has removed support
>> for any makeinfo/texi2dvi older than 4.9.  If you are using a Makefile
>> generated by Automake 1.13.x with a texi2dvi < 4.9, you might be out of
>> luck.
> 
> I guess a DVI file is not required for PDF since that has no failures 
> reported.
>
Indeed, the PDF is built directly from the texinfo sources.

> Anyway, what I have is whatever Ubuntu provides in 12.04:
> 
> 
> address@hidden:~$ automake --version
> automake (GNU automake) 1.11.3
> 
> address@hidden:~$ texi2dvi --version
> texi2dvi (GNU Texinfo 4.13) 1.135
> 
So this isn't a "bad versions of tools" issue.

Anyway, I can reproduce the failure with the vanilla tarball:
<http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free/n/netperf/netperf_2.6.0.orig.tar.gz>

With that, "make dvi" fails for me.  But so does this simple command:

  $ cd doc && TEXINPUTS=".:$TEXINPUTS" /usr/bin/texi2dvi netperf.texi

which shows the issue has nothing to do with Automake.  In fact, the above
works if I use Texinfo 5.x instead of Texinfo 4.13!

So, having estabilished Automake is not the guilty party, I'll let you
chase the issue from ere on.  Good luck ;-)

Stefano