[Mingw-cross-env-list] Custom package configuration (was: Variable JOBS)

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 02/05/12 22:04, Tony Theodore wrote:
> Could you elaborate a little on what sort of local changes you'd put in 
> "Makefile.local"?

Reading about local user settings gives me an idea.  Not sure how 
practical it is to implement this.  The biggest PITA for me in using MXE 
is that I modify every .mk file I build.  Custom CFLAGS/CXXFLAGS/LDFLAGS 
and custom ./configure or cmake options.  The reason being that with the 
modifications, the produced executables end up being only about 30% of 
the size I would get with the stock .mk files.

This result in me very, very rarely updating to new MXE versions.  I 
only ever updated it 3 times in total since I started using it, since an 
update means I have to re-apply all my changes.

So perhaps it might make sense to offer a way to customize that stuff 
locally.  In the past I mentioned the Gentoo package manager, Portage, 
but that's a bit of an overkill for MXE.  But the idea is the same: what 
if the stock makefiles would always try to include a local variant (like 
localconf/basename.mk) in which we can place overrides.  If no overrides 
are found, the defaults will be used.  For example, imagine a 
localconf/qt.mk with:

  CONFIGURE_OPTS = -nomake demos -nomake docs -nomake examples \
                   -nomake tools -no-openssl -no-qt3support \
                   -no-libtiff (... etc, etc, I disable everything
                   I don't need; cuts down the size immensely.)

  DEPS = zlib libpng jpeg libmng

  CXXFLAGS = "-pipe -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -march=i686 \
             -mtune=generic -fdata-sections -ffunction-sections"

The stock qt.mk would then start with the needed base settings (for 
example "gcc" is always needed in DEPS, "-prefix '$(PREFIX)/$(TARGET)'" 
always needs to be passed to configure, etc.)  It then checks if custom 
variables are set in localconf/qt.mk, and if yes uses them.  If not, it 
uses the defaults.