Re: 64-bit version of Lilypond?

[Knut Petersen]

On 12.02.19 20:46, Karlin High wrote:
> On 2/12/2019 1:12 PM, Joseph Austin wrote:
> > I just installed version 2.19.82-1 on my Mac OSX 10.13.4, and Mac complains 
> > that it's 32 bit software.
> > Is there or will there be a 64-bit version of Lilypond that runs on Mac?
>
> LilyPond's GUB build system is currently being repaired. Once it returns to 
> production, it needs more work on teaching it to build a 64-bit Mac version of 
> LilyPond. The next version of macOS is planned to only use 64-bit software.

"LilyPond's GUB build system is currently being repaired" means:

 * Some undocumented limitations were removed from gub and lilypond. To give an 
example: gub only was able to succeed if it was executed as user gub and if it 
was installed in the directory /home/gub/gub/NewGub. Both limitations were 
removed.
 * Gub was only able to succeed on some very old linux distributions, e.g. 
ubuntu 14 and 16. Today it's possible to use gub on at least ubuntu 14, 16 and 
18, opensuse tumbleweed, opensuse leaf, debian 9.7,  mint and archlinux. It is 
not necessary to boot one of the tested distributions, you might
   chroot to some minimal disk image or use e.g. VirtualBox on a Windows 
system. I don't know of anybody who tried that, but I don't see a reason why 
building lilypond installers using VirtualBox on a MacOS host should fail.

"LilyPond's GUB build system is currently being repaired" is misleading: Gub 
from grahams repository + pull request or e.g the gub at 
https://github.com/knupero/gub.git (grahams gub + pull requests 53-60) has been tested by 
a lot of people, I don't see a reason not to use it.

Some work has to be done:

A lot of ancient software is built and used, the result is distributed. Ancient means e.g. that and even older version of guile is used. Ancient means that gub still use gcc 4. Ancient means that gub uses a maintenance release of glibc 2.3 published in 2007, glibc 2.3 dates back to the year 2002. 
Ancient means that gub builds, uses and distributes python 2.4.5 although at least lilypond's script musicxml2ly requires at least python version 2.7, a version released in the year 2010. Current gub only succeeds to test lilypond and to build the lilypond documentation because a bug in gub 
(introduced more than a decade ago) has the result that the system's python and not the python compiled by gub is used during some parts of the build process.

Currently a few people work on gub, but I tend to believe that none of the lilypond developers test if a patch is compatible to gub before they propose it. After a lilypond patch is proposed, James does test it. But even James does not use gub for testing. Gub does allow to build branches of 
lilypond it fetches from a local git-daemon, it is also possible to instruct gub to directly use a local lilypond git directory. But these features are hidden, undocumented, and therefore probably unused.

We  should update some of the ancient software gub uses. I think some people 
work on that.

We should update our documentation. Will be done later, most of the relevant 
information has been posted to lilypond-devel.

Knut