Re: About configure (was: Re: [Axiom-developer] confusion over patch suggestion)

[root]

Axiom can be compiled in any directory. Once the compile completes you
copy the mnt subdirectory to (yourpath) and then set AXIOM=(yourpath)/mnt/linux
(or (yourpath)/mnt/freebsd). Everything else can be erased.

The src directory is untouched during the build. The INT directory
contains system-independent, machine-built files (e.g. lisp code), the
OBJ directory contains system-dependent, machine-built files (e.g. the
.o files) and MNT contains the "shipped system"). You can erase int
and obj at any time.  They exist to speed up rebuilding and to hold
optimization information (e.g. the .fn files). After the system build
you can erase everything except MNT anywhere and MNT can move anywhere.

Also You can clip off SRC and ZIPS, reset the Axiom variable, and
build for a new system. You can copy external packages into ZIPS, make
minor mods to the top level Makefile.pamphlet (e.g. the GCLVERSION
variable), type make, and use the new code.

Originally this scheme came about because I built Axiom for about a dozen
different systems. In the first build you set it up as:

    src       int       obj/sys1       mnt/sys1
-------------------------------------------------
|        |         |              |             |
|        |         |              |             |

The make fills in the INT subdirectory (as well as OBJ and MNT for sys1).
For the second and subsequent systems you NFS mount empty file systems over
SRC and INT on sys2 thus:

    NFS       NFS
    src       int       obj/sys2       mnt/sys2
-------------------------------------------------
|        |         |              |             |
|        |         |              |             |

Now you can type make and it will rebuild OBJ and MNT for sys2 using the
system-independent work done for sys1.

Axiom used to take about 3 weeks of continuous build time to build from
scratch (well, not scratch. you needed a running Axiom). INT and OBJ
reduced the cost of making changes down to a couple hours at most.
Even now on a 2Ghz, 1GB system it takes a couple hours. This scheme 
reduces minor rebuilds to a couple minutes. If I had the hardware 
available and NFS running I could significantly reduce build times for
ports.

Tim