grub-1.97

grub-1.97

[Bruce Dubbs]

I am putting grub2 into the Linux From Scratch book and have built/tested it and 
it works quite well for us.  Thank you.

I do have a question.  After building a package, we like to test it for those 
packages that have tests built in.  When I tried `make test`, I got an error 
about missing m2c.  I then went to the Debian repository and built m2c.  Now I 
get the error:

bdubbs@core2:/usr/src/grub/grub-1.97$ make test
m2c    -o test -e test test.mod
m2c: unknown flag `-e'
make: *** [test] Error 1

What version of m2c are you using and where is it available?  Is this a valid 
way to run a regression test for grub-1.97?

I'd also like to make a comment.  It may be useful if you split up the build 
into subdirectories by component.  When I extracted the tarball, there were 57 
files/directories in the top of the build tree.  After configure it was 64.  So 
far so good.  However, after make it was over 2400 files, many with very long 
file names.  This makes it almost impossible to navigate form the command line, 
even on a very big screen.  If you split it up, you could also shorten the 
filenames.  I would think that would be an advantage to encourage programmers to 
read the code and contribute to the project.

   -- Bruce Dubbs
      linuxfromscratch.org

Re: grub-1.97

[Colin Watson]

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 08:59:15PM -0500, Bruce Dubbs wrote:
> I do have a question.  After building a package, we like to test it for 
> those packages that have tests built in.  When I tried `make test`, I got 
> an error about missing m2c.  I then went to the Debian repository and 
> built m2c.  Now I get the error:

I don't see the string "m2c" anywhere in GRUB. This is part of the
default 'make' rule for building Modula-2 programs, which is irrelevant
here; it's an accident of how files happen to be named that it's used at
all.

GRUB does not have a regression test suite.

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson@ubuntu.com]

Re: grub-1.97

[Michal Suchanek]

2009/10/28 Bruce Dubbs <bruce.dubbs@gmail.com>:
> I am putting grub2 into the Linux From Scratch book and have built/tested it
> and it works quite well for us.  Thank you.
>
> I do have a question.  After building a package, we like to test it for
> those packages that have tests built in.  When I tried `make test`, I got an
> error about missing m2c.  I then went to the Debian repository and built
> m2c.  Now I get the error:
>
> bdubbs@core2:/usr/src/grub/grub-1.97$ make test
> m2c    -o test -e test test.mod
> m2c: unknown flag `-e'
> make: *** [test] Error 1
>
> What version of m2c are you using and where is it available?  Is this a
> valid way to run a regression test for grub-1.97?
>
> I'd also like to make a comment.  It may be useful if you split up the build
> into subdirectories by component.  When I extracted the tarball, there were
> 57 files/directories in the top of the build tree.  After configure it was
> 64.  So far so good.  However, after make it was over 2400 files, many with
> very long file names.  This makes it almost impossible to navigate form the
> command line, even on a very big screen.  If you split it up, you could also
> shorten the filenames.  I would think that would be an advantage to
> encourage programmers to read the code and contribute to the project.
>

I guess it's meant to be used like this:

tar -jxvf grub-version.tar.bz2
cd grub-version
mkdir build
cd build
../configure --prefix=/some_prefix --options
make
make install

Now you have 2k files in the build directory but the ones that are
useful can be found under /some_prefix

You can find the files installed under /some_prefix in the build
directory so you can use them directly as well.

Many of the object files are replicated numerous times because of the
way grub links its modules. This may be addressed at later time, there
were some patches for simplifying this process.

I have no problems navigating the directory from command line although
the layout does seem a bit odd. Maybe it's related to the fact I have
some 700 files (excluding .files) in ~.

Thanks

Michal

Re: grub-1.97

[Bruce Dubbs]

Colin Watson wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 08:59:15PM -0500, Bruce Dubbs wrote:
>> I do have a question.  After building a package, we like to test it for 
>> those packages that have tests built in.  When I tried `make test`, I got 
>> an error about missing m2c.  I then went to the Debian repository and 
>> built m2c.  Now I get the error:
> 
> I don't see the string "m2c" anywhere in GRUB. This is part of the
> default 'make' rule for building Modula-2 programs, which is irrelevant
> here; it's an accident of how files happen to be named that it's used at
> all.
> 
> GRUB does not have a regression test suite.

Thanks for the confirmation.  I had checked to see where m2c was used and 
couldn't find it either.

   -- Bruce

Re: grub-1.97

[Bruce Dubbs]

Michal Suchanek wrote:
> 2009/10/28 Bruce Dubbs <bruce.dubbs@gmail.com>:

>> I'd also like to make a comment.  It may be useful if you split up the build
>> into subdirectories by component.  When I extracted the tarball, there were
>> 57 files/directories in the top of the build tree.  After configure it was
>> 64.  So far so good.  However, after make it was over 2400 files, many with
>> very long file names.  This makes it almost impossible to navigate form the
>> command line, even on a very big screen.  If you split it up, you could also
>> shorten the filenames.  I would think that would be an advantage to
>> encourage programmers to read the code and contribute to the project.
>>
> 
> I guess it's meant to be used like this:
> 
> tar -jxvf grub-version.tar.bz2
> cd grub-version
> mkdir build
> cd build
> ../configure./configure --prefix=/usr \
             --sysconfdir=/etc \
             --disable-largefile     \
             --disable-grub-emu      \
             --disable-grub-emu-usb  \
             --disable-grub-fstest   \
             --disable-efiemu --prefix=/some_prefix --options
> make
> make install

Yes, that is exactly what we are doing.  Right now the configure line is

./configure --prefix=/usr           \
             --sysconfdir=/etc       \
             --disable-largefile     \
             --disable-grub-emu      \
             --disable-grub-emu-usb  \
             --disable-grub-fstest   \
             --disable-efiemu

> Now you have 2k files in the build directory but the ones that are
> useful can be found under /some_prefix

Right and 1200 of them are *.lst files, many of which have 30+ character 
filenames.  Doing an ls puts everything in one column.  Even if I expand my 
terminal to 269 characters, I only get 4 columns of files.  It's just hard to 
navigate.

> You can find the files installed under /some_prefix in the build
> directory so you can use them directly as well.

Yes, but you have to do `ls -l|grep ^d` just to find out what the directories are.

> Many of the object files are replicated numerous times because of the
> way grub links its modules. This may be addressed at later time, there
> were some patches for simplifying this process.

Since there is only one Makefile, I could take a shot at creating a patch to 
address this problem.  Would you be interested in such a patch?

   -- Bruce

Re: grub-1.97

[Felix Zielcke]

Am Mittwoch, den 28.10.2009, 11:02 -0500 schrieb Bruce Dubbs:
> Since there is only one Makefile, I could take a shot at creating a
> patch to 
> address this problem.  Would you be interested in such a patch? 

That's wrong that there is just one Makefile. Well it's true that there
is just one file named like that, but the main Makefiles are the
conf/*.mk files generated from conf/*.rmk by genmk.rb.

There wasn't yet much talk about improving our build system.
Bean just made it less complex in his lib branch (IIRC he called it
something like that)
But except of this nobody had much interest/time to improve or even
directly replace our build system by something better.
Okuji already objected against automake because according to him it
doestn't satisfy the needs for our build system.

-- 
Felix Zielcke
Proud Debian Maintainer and GNU GRUB developer

Re: grub-1.97

[Felix Zielcke]

Am Mittwoch, den 28.10.2009, 17:39 +0100 schrieb Felix Zielcke:
> Am Mittwoch, den 28.10.2009, 11:02 -0500 schrieb Bruce Dubbs:
> > Since there is only one Makefile, I could take a shot at creating a
> > patch to 
> > address this problem.  Would you be interested in such a patch? 
> 
> That's wrong that there is just one Makefile. Well it's true that there
> is just one file named like that, but the main Makefiles are the
> conf/*.mk files generated from conf/*.rmk by genmk.rb.
> 
> There wasn't yet much talk about improving our build system.
> Bean just made it less complex in his lib branch (IIRC he called it
> something like that)
> But except of this nobody had much interest/time to improve or even
> directly replace our build system by something better.
> Okuji already objected against automake because according to him it
> doestn't satisfy the needs for our build system.

Uhm correction: I totally forgot about Vladimirs one Makefile
implementation.
Sorry Vladimir.

But IIRC even about this there wasn't much talk about.


-- 
Felix Zielcke
Proud Debian Maintainer and GNU GRUB developer

Re: grub-1.97

[Bruce Dubbs]

Felix Zielcke wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, den 28.10.2009, 11:02 -0500 schrieb Bruce Dubbs:
>> Since there is only one Makefile, I could take a shot at creating a
>> patch to 
>> address this problem.  Would you be interested in such a patch? 
> 
> That's wrong that there is just one Makefile. Well it's true that there
> is just one file named like that, but the main Makefiles are the
> conf/*.mk files generated from conf/*.rmk by genmk.rb.

Yes I see that now.  Obviously I spoke before reviewing the internals of the 
build system.  I'll review it in a bit more detail and see if I can contribute 
something useful.

> There wasn't yet much talk about improving our build system.

Yes, that and documentation are generally the last things to be considered in a 
project.

> But except of this nobody had much interest/time to improve or even
> directly replace our build system by something better.

I have some interest, but I'm not sure of the time.  I can at least look at it 
and possibly make some suggestions/patches.

> Okuji already objected against automake because according to him it
> doestn't satisfy the needs for our build system.

I'm not a great fan of automake either.

   -- Bruce

Re: grub-1.97

[richardvoigt]

On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 11:02 AM, Bruce Dubbs <bruce.dubbs@gmail.com> wrote:
> Michal Suchanek wrote:
>>
>> 2009/10/28 Bruce Dubbs <bruce.dubbs@gmail.com>:
>
>>> I'd also like to make a comment.  It may be useful if you split up the
>>> build
>>> into subdirectories by component.  When I extracted the tarball, there
>>> were
>>> 57 files/directories in the top of the build tree.  After configure it
>>> was
>>> 64.  So far so good.  However, after make it was over 2400 files, many
>>> with
>>> very long file names.  This makes it almost impossible to navigate form
>>> the
>>> command line, even on a very big screen.  If you split it up, you could
>>> also
>>> shorten the filenames.  I would think that would be an advantage to
>>> encourage programmers to read the code and contribute to the project.
>>>
>>
>> I guess it's meant to be used like this:
>>
>> tar -jxvf grub-version.tar.bz2
>> cd grub-version
>> mkdir build
>> cd build
>> ../configure./configure --prefix=/usr \
>
>            --sysconfdir=/etc \
>            --disable-largefile     \
>            --disable-grub-emu      \
>            --disable-grub-emu-usb  \
>            --disable-grub-fstest   \
>            --disable-efiemu --prefix=/some_prefix --options
>>
>> make
>> make install
>
> Yes, that is exactly what we are doing.  Right now the configure line is

Not "exactly", and the difference is important.Michal suggested
running "../configure" with a double-dot meaning parent directory.
Your line has only a single dot, meaning current directory.  As a
result your files are all mixed together instead of separated as
intended.

>
> ./configure --prefix=/usr           \
>            --sysconfdir=/etc       \
>            --disable-largefile     \
>            --disable-grub-emu      \
>            --disable-grub-emu-usb  \
>            --disable-grub-fstest   \
>            --disable-efiemu

Re: grub-1.97

[Bruce Dubbs]

richardvoigt@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 11:02 AM, Bruce Dubbs <bruce.dubbs@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Michal Suchanek wrote:

>>> I guess it's meant to be used like this:
>>>
>>> tar -jxvf grub-version.tar.bz2
>>> cd grub-version
>>> mkdir build
>>> cd build
>>> ../configure./configure --prefix=/usr \
>>            --sysconfdir=/etc \
>>            --disable-largefile     \
>>            --disable-grub-emu      \
>>            --disable-grub-emu-usb  \
>>            --disable-grub-fstest   \
>>            --disable-efiemu --prefix=/some_prefix --options
>>> make
>>> make install
>> Yes, that is exactly what we are doing.  Right now the configure line is
> 
> Not "exactly", and the difference is important.Michal suggested
> running "../configure" with a double-dot meaning parent directory.
> Your line has only a single dot, meaning current directory.  As a
> result your files are all mixed together instead of separated as
> intended.
> 
>> ./configure --prefix=/usr           \
>>            --sysconfdir=/etc       \
>>            --disable-largefile     \
>>            --disable-grub-emu      \
>>            --disable-grub-emu-usb  \
>>            --disable-grub-fstest   \
>>            --disable-efiemu

Ah yes.  Thank you Richard.  Either systems works, but using a separate build 
directory keeps all the 2400 generated files out of the main directory.  I'll 
change to that in LFS.

   -- Bruce