Re: configure/make/make install with moving srcdir, builddir...

[Geoff Keating <geoffk at geoffk dot org>]

> Date: Thu, 04 Jul 2002 10:18:11 -0700
> From: Mark Mitchell <mark@codesourcery.com>

> --On Thursday, July 04, 2002 12:36:38 PM -0400 DJ Delorie <dj@redhat.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> >
> >> I think that's fine.  And if we can really simplify our makefiles that's
> >> worth more than being able to change the $srcdir around.  We can always
> >> add that later if someone really, really needs it.
> >
> > What about the case where you do a build on one machine, and do "make
> > install" on many others with different mount points?  Doesn't that
> > need to know where srcdir is, yet srcdir is a different location for
> > them?
> 
> Yes -- but this is exactly the kind of thing that I think we can live
> without.
> 
> I know people do this; I know it's convenient.
...

It may be that it's easier to replace this usage with another
convenient way to do things.  For instance, GCC is supposed to be
location-independent; perhaps we could ask that people who would use
'make install' to install on multiple machines in different places
instead use the (well-tested and often-used) facilities to install in
an alternative directory, and then use 'tar' or a package management
tool to move the binaries to where they need to go.

It's arguable that really, GCC's makefiles shouldn't be dealing with
many of these things at all (like uninstalling or installing over an
earlier version); it's better to delegate them to a real
package-management system.

-- 
- Geoffrey Keating <geoffk@geoffk.org> <geoffk@redhat.com>