Re: [RFC] getting rid of the config.guess/sub problem when bootstrapping new ports/systems

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Mon, 08 Oct 2012, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Personally, I've already started converting every package I maintain that
> uses Autoconf to using dh_autoreconf during the build.  I wonder if that
> isn't a better long-term solution for Debian.  config.guess/config.sub
> have caused the most frequent problems, but we've had problems in the past
> from old versions of Libtool as well, and dh_autoreconf resolves the
> entire problem (at least for packages for which it works).
> 
> Paul, separately, if you haven't already, could you request that the
> Lintian checks for outdated config.guess/config.sub be updated for
> whatever version you need for arm64?  We could also recommend
> dh_autoreconf at the same time, which might resolve a lot of these
> problems going forward.

Well, as far as I am concerned, we should axe from the [next] Debian stable
distro anything that doesn't retool completely before the build, IMO just
updating config.sub/guess is not nearly enough.

That said, Debian rules for packages *really* won't help a large class of
people: those who are not doing Debian package work...

And BTW, I am perfectly fine with issuing debian-stable updates to
autotools-dev (the Debian package that contains the /usr/share/misc/
config.{sub,guess}), but someone has to convince the release managers that
this is acceptable.  We _really_ should do this, since people do develop
software using Debian...

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh