Bootstrapping X.Org (was Call Monday 24 Jan 2005)

[Daniel Stone]

On Wed, Jan 26, 2005 at 11:24:53AM -0800, Torrey Lyons wrote:
> At 9:01 PM -0500 1/25/05, Adam Jackson wrote:
> >I can express these dependencies in a top-level totally portable [1] 
> >Makefile
> >without much hassle.  Would that be good enough?
> 
> Yes, that would be ideal. We have heard that the modular tree is now 
> complete and self sufficient. Exercising a top level Makefile on 
> clean systems without anything in /usr/X11R6 would be a good acid 
> test of this claim.

While I've not got a top-level Makefile, I have already done this.

> At 2:15 PM +1100 1/26/05, Daniel Stone wrote:
> >I know because I have bootstrapped my way with a machine with no 
> >monolithic bits
> >ever having been intsalled on it, up to the top of the Debrix stack, 
> >cleanly.  I
> >still have some Debrix bits to commit.
> >
> >I did this not because it's an even halfway worthwhile use case, but to 
> >prove
> >that the modular tree can be used totally independently of the 
> >monolithic tree,
> >and is ready to make a clean break.
> 
> Make this easy to do so others can duplicate in their own environment 
> and you will win converts. :-)

Would the top-level Makefile thing, or jhbuild, satisfy your concern here?

> At 2:15 PM +1100 1/26/05, Daniel Stone wrote:
> >Building your own UNIX system from scratch or whatever is a totally
> >uninteresting use case, and not one I care anywhere near enough about to 
> >start
> >compromising core goals for.  If you're making your OS, life is tough.  
> >There
> >are these difficult things with C libraries, compilers, and bootstrapping 
> >the
> >entire thing, that suck a lot more than building X from bottom to 
> >top.  There's
> >a reason why everyone uses distributions.
> 
> All the same, I think everyone would agree that an OS that can not 
> build itself from scratch without Herculean effort is seriously 
> flawed. The same is true for X.Org. We need to provide a top level 
> way to build an X11 tree to be credible in a new modular environment. 
> Sure, there are lots of ways to skin a cat, but it matters when you 
> are the cat. Lets at least have one solution which is supported and 
> documented.

I wouldn't say Herculean effort -- it's pretty credibly scriptable, and you
could have a top-level Makefile to build everything, or use jhbuild.  But I just
don't see it as an interesting use case to design for.

> At 2:15 PM +1100 1/26/05, Daniel Stone wrote:
> >(For what it's worth, I don't see the use case for building the 
> >*entire* X stack
> > again either as a developer, because I can't think of anything short of
> > changing the entire wire protocol that would impact everything.)
> 
> Believe it or not, there are *nix OS'es out there which have 
> excellent windowing systems that do not include X11 by default.

Sure, but in this case, it's still something you just do once, no?
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