Re: Linux to MacOSX port effort.

[W . Northcott]

>> Apple have just released a version (tag gcc3-1041) on the April 2002
>> Developer Tools as a beta of the next shipping compiler (Jaguar?).

>Yes, two things we should remember in that respect:

>a) We are dealing with gcc3.1. The Objective C core compiler is normally
>patched for swarm; and the patch (designed for 3.0) changes lines that
>have changed between gcc3.0 and 3.1. Has anybody re-examined how to
>upgrade the patch code to gcc3.1? Is it even still necessary? (Did
>somebody propose that patch to Gnu?)

I am bit worried if we have to patch standard compilers.  As I understand 
the Apple variant it is mainly about extra features like pfe, precomp and 
Altivec support which are all good things.
Does Marcus have a comment?

>b) If you build the apple version of gcc from CVS (the tag I heard about
>was nervous-weasel-branch), it does not build libobjc, unlike the GNU
>stock gcc3.1.

This is normal.  Is it not?  Swarm uses a patched libobjc and I can't see 
that that is going to change.  there are certainly two libobcjs in my 
Compaq Tru64 installation.  It is just a matter of care when linking a 
given program.  A Framework structure would make this easy in OS X.
BTW tags like gcc3-10XX are just milestones on the nervous-weasel-branch. 
The recent beta is tag gcc3-1041.  A subsequent one of these tags is 
slated to be the shipping compiler for OS X 10.2 (Jaguar).  More may 
become apparent at WWDC which is only a couple of weeks away.  The 
gcc3-1041 compiler which I have built (Apple Style) seems to work OK.

>>   2) and 4)With some considerable assistance from Jim Ingham at Apple, 
I
>> have got the Aqua port of Tcl/Tk to compile (with gcc 3.1) in such a 
way

>Good work!

You flatter me.  All I did was ask a lot of questions.

>Most of the other libraries (hd5 etc.) can be found in the fink
>packaging system ( http://fink.sourceforge.net/ ). Since a lot of people
>have it, I suggest we all go that route.

I am not keen on Fink except as a temporary expedient.  It is very 
non-standard and it managed to stuff my system big time on one occasion.
I would think that it was in the interest of all those who would like to 
use MacOS X for serious scientific computing, that we get those libraries 
to build in proper OS X style as Frameworks.  I don't think this is too 
hard.

>A few simple build notes: (I'm not done either, but just to avoid people
>losing time over the same hurdles)...........

Many thanks for that.  We will need somewhere to consolidate all this good 
stuff to increase our leverage.

Bill Northcott

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