RE: [Axiom-developer] Question about building

[Bill Page]

On Tuesday, November 30, 2004 10:23 AM C Y wrote:
> 
> If I remember correctly, Axiom needs to know at the start of the
> build process where it is going to be installed.
>
> Gentoo's portage system (package management) builds all programs
> in a temporary directory, and after a successful build moves the
> resulting files to their final location.

The way the Axiom build is setup right now it is just a little non-
standard. If you cd to the directory where you have the Axiom source
and they type

  ./configure

All you will see a message telling you how to set the AXIOM variable
and how to modify the PATH (on linux systems). Unlike the standard
gnu approach, ./configure does not do anything else. It does not
even set these variables. You have to do that manually.

After the variables are set you can do

  make

as normally. However the Axiom Makefile does not include any 'install'
target. You also have to do that manually. You can run Axiom directly
from where it was built, but if you want to, you can copy everything
under the mnt directory where ever you want it on your system, e.g.

  cp -rp mnt /usr/local/axiom

Then of course you have to modify the AXIOM and PATH variables
accordingly. It is usually convenient to do this by modifying
the 'axiom' startup script. Or alternatively you can set these in
your .bashrc file at log in.

> (Basically portage assumes the configure - make - make install
> routine works normally.)

See above. The current Axiom build is not "normal" in this regard.
Anyone feel like submitting a patch to fix it?

> Is there a way an Axiom build can be relocated after it has been
> built,

Yes, see above.

> or is its initial knowledge of its final resting place intrinsic
> to the build?

No. No such problem.

> 
> People were asking about CASs on the gentoo-scientific email list,
> so it brought the question to my mind again.  I would like to create
> an ebuild for axiom, but I'm not quite sure how to make it work with
> what I remember of Axiom's build system.

Great! Please go ahead and set up an ebuild for axiom. If you have
problems ask here.

Regards,
Bill Page.