[Qemu-devel] Missing dependency checks in qemu build

[Qemu-devel] Missing dependency checks in qemu build

[Matthew Fernandez]

Hi all,

This only came to my attention when building qemu on a colleague's machine recently, but there are 
some dependencies for the build that are not detected during the standard `configure` process. In 
particular, missing autoconf was not detected until running `make` itself. Also missing libtool 
produced a fairly obtuse error. It was reasonably apparent to me what went wrong, but thoroughly 
confusing to my colleague.

Should the configure process be made more bulletproof? Perhaps assuming the existence of these 
things seems fine to others. I don't know what the status quo is here. By the way, this is with 
reference to the qemu 1.7.0 release. I'm not on the list currently, so please CC me when replying.

Thanks,
Matt

Re: [Qemu-devel] Missing dependency checks in qemu build

[Stefan Weil]

Am 22.03.2014 01:10, schrieb Matthew Fernandez:
> Hi all,
> 
> This only came to my attention when building qemu on a colleague's
> machine recently, but there are some dependencies for the build that are
> not detected during the standard `configure` process. In particular,
> missing autoconf was not detected until running `make` itself. Also
> missing libtool produced a fairly obtuse error. It was reasonably
> apparent to me what went wrong, but thoroughly confusing to my colleague.
> 
> Should the configure process be made more bulletproof? Perhaps assuming
> the existence of these things seems fine to others. I don't know what
> the status quo is here. By the way, this is with reference to the qemu
> 1.7.0 release. I'm not on the list currently, so please CC me when
> replying.
> 
> Thanks,
> Matt
> 

Hi Matt,

QEMU's configure tries to check at least the most important
prerequisites for the build process. autoconf is not used directly by
QEMU. There is a check for libtool in configure.

Did the errors occur in one of the submodules (pixman or dtc)? Those
submodules use autoconf (maybe also libtool). They are not needed if you
install the packages of your Linux distribution. Can you give more
details on the build environment?

Regards
Stefan

Re: [Qemu-devel] Missing dependency checks in qemu build

[Matthew Fernandez]

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Hi Stefan,

Sorry, I should have given the specifics. I was building qemu from source
in order to apply some patches beforehand. The build environment was a more
or less clean install of the latest 32-bit Xubuntu.

If configure currently checks for libtool, it didn't catch that we didn't
have it installed. I didn't actually check in detail whether the errors
originated from qemu core or a submodule. If this is all as intended, then
no problem. Just wanted to bring it to someone's attention if not.

Thanks,
Matt
On 22 Mar 2014 18:23, "Stefan Weil" <sw@weilnetz.de> wrote:

> Am 22.03.2014 01:10, schrieb Matthew Fernandez:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > This only came to my attention when building qemu on a colleague's
> > machine recently, but there are some dependencies for the build that are
> > not detected during the standard `configure` process. In particular,
> > missing autoconf was not detected until running `make` itself. Also
> > missing libtool produced a fairly obtuse error. It was reasonably
> > apparent to me what went wrong, but thoroughly confusing to my colleague.
> >
> > Should the configure process be made more bulletproof? Perhaps assuming
> > the existence of these things seems fine to others. I don't know what
> > the status quo is here. By the way, this is with reference to the qemu
> > 1.7.0 release. I'm not on the list currently, so please CC me when
> > replying.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Matt
> >
>
> Hi Matt,
>
> QEMU's configure tries to check at least the most important
> prerequisites for the build process. autoconf is not used directly by
> QEMU. There is a check for libtool in configure.
>
> Did the errors occur in one of the submodules (pixman or dtc)? Those
> submodules use autoconf (maybe also libtool). They are not needed if you
> install the packages of your Linux distribution. Can you give more
> details on the build environment?
>
> Regards
> Stefan
>
>
>

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