[GRASS5] [building questions]

[Carl Worth]

On Jun 17, Glynn Clements wrote:
 > > Ok - so what do you think about releasing several sets
 > > of grass binaries - with different libraries compiled in?
 > 
 > Mostly, there isn't any real need. We supply everything, and the user
 > gets to use anything for which they have the necessary libraries.

I agree that that's the right model.

One current frustration is that most optional functionality defaults
to being included in the configure script.

I recently experienced the following in trying to build grass:

	1) run ./configure [...]
	2) It complains about a missing library "foo"
	3) Do one of the following:
		a) install libfoo
		b) add --without-foo to the configure command line
	4) goto 1

I iterated on this 6 or 7 times I think. It was frustrating since the
configure script takes so long to run, (and I happened to not need any
of the functionality that wasn't available to start with).

What I would prefer is that if configure notices that some optional
functionality "foo" is not available, it automatically continues as if
the --without-foo option had been passed.

Of course, if this were in place, it might also be nice to add some
text to the final block of configure output that describes what
functionality would not be built so that the user could then install
additional libraries and rebuild as needed.

That would also be beneficial for the users that did want all the
functionality, since it would tell them in one step what additional
libraries would be necessary before building.

-Carl

-- 
Carl Worth                                        
USC Information Sciences Institute                 cworth at east.isi.edu
3811 N. Fairfax Dr. #200, Arlington VA 22203		  703-812-3725