[task #15756] Robustly decide which OS we are on

[Boud Roukema]

URL:
  <https://savannah.nongnu.org/task/?15756>

                 Summary: Robustly decide which OS we are on
                 Project: Reproducible paper template
            Submitted by: boud
            Submitted on: Thu 20 Aug 2020 02:50:29 PM UTC
         Should Start On: Thu 20 Aug 2020 12:00:00 AM UTC
   Should be Finished on: Thu 20 Aug 2020 12:00:00 AM UTC
                Category: None
                Priority: 5 - Normal
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
        Percent Complete: 0%
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
                  Effort: 0.00

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Details:

In commit _9573d4e_ of maneage, in file
_reproduce/software/shell/configure.sh_ , we presently have


   207  kernelname=$(uname -s)
   208  if [ x$kernelname = xLinux ]; then
   209      on_mac_os=no
   210  
   211      # Don't forget to add the respective C++ compiler below (leave
'cc' in
   212      # the end).
   213      c_compiler_list="gcc clang cc"
   214  else
   215      host_cc=1
   216      on_mac_os=yes
   217  
   218      # Don't forget to add the respective C++ compiler below (leave
'cc' in
   219      # the end).
   220      c_compiler_list="clang gcc cc"
   221  fi


preceded by a warning that we should do better. :)

At https://ss64.com/osx/uname.html I see that _uname -s_ on OSX seems to print
the operating system name, not the kernel name.

Here's a stackoverflow recommended script plus discussion:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/714100/os-detecting-makefile

I think that as a minimum, we should check that "Darwin" is the OS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_%28operating_system%29 , and report a
failure to detect the OS if both Linux and Darwin fail. That way we'll get
more useful error reports for encouraging updates/extensions in
portability/reproducibility.

As a matter of principle, we should be able to run on GNU/Hurd, which is not a
Linux system... :)






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