[gentoo-dev] Removing .la files...

[gentoo-dev] Removing .la files...

[Wulf C. Krueger]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1002 bytes --]

Hello!

I think flameeyes should have sent this himself in the first place, but 
since he's clearly not going to do that and prefers to just force it on 
our users I'm mailing this...

flameeyes talked about .la files in his blog recently:

http://blog.flameeyes.eu/articles/2008/04/14/what-about-those-la-files

Now he decided that simply removing them for several packages, resulting 
in http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=218286 and its dupes.

This is annoying for quite a few users as they will have to rebuild lots 
of stuff for KDE, Gnome and other packages and I'm not sure if this is 
really the way we want to fix --as-needed failures.

Furthermore, such things should not be decided and pushed through 
unilaterally but be agreed upon here prior to doing this change. 

Especially since even though removing .la files might make sense (with 
exceptions, of course) we should think about either doing it 
distribution-wide or not at all.

-- 
Best regards, Wulf

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part. --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 197 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] Removing .la files...

[Alistair Bush]

Wulf C. Krueger wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> I think flameeyes should have sent this himself in the first place, but 
> since he's clearly not going to do that and prefers to just force it on 
> our users I'm mailing this...
>

Have we not learn't!  I hardly think that revdep-rebuild is an obvious 
solution to this issue.  So now we have doomed our users ( and some of 
our dev's ) to having to search for a solution.  I note that within the 
ebuild there isn't even a elog explaining what to do.  If we are going 
to make changes like this we need to provide an effective "news service".

I'm sure this was one of the issues that arose during the "hot house 
months".

I actually find this incident rather depressing. especially after we 
(seem to) have done so well with the baselayout/openrc migration. ( I do 
realise that one is significantly bigger than the other and therefore 
requires a bigger "fan fair" ).

> flameeyes talked about .la files in his blog recently:
> 
> http://blog.flameeyes.eu/articles/2008/04/14/what-about-those-la-files

Im sure everyone will find that

> 
> Now he decided that simply removing them for several packages, resulting 
> in http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=218286 and its dupes.
> 

What a surprise.  never could have guessed.

> This is annoying for quite a few users as they will have to rebuild lots 
> of stuff for KDE, Gnome and other packages and I'm not sure if this is 
> really the way we want to fix --as-needed failures.

++.  We sure do like to annoy our users.

> 
> Furthermore, such things should not be decided and pushed through 
> unilaterally but be agreed upon here prior to doing this change. 
> 

++.  I actually have no problem with agreeing with it,  currently my 
problem is the complete and utter lack of any _planned_ upgrade path. 
What do we think users are going to be saying at the end of the year 
when after every sync they have to revdep-rebuild.  Maybe, if we proceed 
with this, we investigate what can have its la files removed and do it 
all in one go.  therefore ppl won't have to rebuild kde/gnome ( or any 
other large and time consuming package) over and over and over and over 
and over and over ....... again.  Hell it would even be better to 
"batch" a few conversions so that each revdep-rebuild fixes multiple 
breakages in one.

> Especially since even though removing .la files might make sense (with 
> exceptions, of course) we should think about either doing it 
> distribution-wide or not at all.
> 
++++++

-- 
gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Removing .la files...

[Luca Barbato]

Wulf C. Krueger wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> I think flameeyes should have sent this himself in the first place, but 
> since he's clearly not going to do that and prefers to just force it on 
> our users I'm mailing this...
> 
> flameeyes talked about .la files in his blog recently:
> 
> http://blog.flameeyes.eu/articles/2008/04/14/what-about-those-la-files
> 
> Now he decided that simply removing them for several packages, resulting 
> in http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=218286 and its dupes.
> 
> This is annoying for quite a few users as they will have to rebuild lots 
> of stuff for KDE, Gnome and other packages and I'm not sure if this is 
> really the way we want to fix --as-needed failures.

That or just remove the other .la.

> Furthermore, such things should not be decided and pushed through 
> unilaterally but be agreed upon here prior to doing this change. 

Agreed, even if it is relatively low profile IMHO.

> Especially since even though removing .la files might make sense (with 
> exceptions, of course) we should think about either doing it 
> distribution-wide or not at all.

I'll put as item for the council meeting if we don't reach consensus before.

In the other news I advise to start asking library upstreams to provide 
pkgconfig files (and/or push patches providing that).

lu

-- 

Luca Barbato
Gentoo Council Member
Gentoo/linux Gentoo/PPC
http://dev.gentoo.org/~lu_zero

-- 
gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Removing .la files...

[Luca Barbato]

Alistair Bush wrote:
> ++.  I actually have no problem with agreeing with it,  currently my 
> problem is the complete and utter lack of any _planned_ upgrade path. 
> What do we think users are going to be saying at the end of the year 
> when after every sync they have to revdep-rebuild.  Maybe, if we proceed 
> with this, we investigate what can have its la files removed and do it 
> all in one go.  therefore ppl won't have to rebuild kde/gnome ( or any 
> other large and time consuming package) over and over and over and over 
> and over and over ....... again.  Hell it would even be better to 
> "batch" a few conversions so that each revdep-rebuild fixes multiple 
> breakages in one.

Call that an experiment, do not start screaming but just try to help a bit.

I think we could have those change masked now and unmasked once we got 
something sorted better.

lu

-- 

Luca Barbato
Gentoo Council Member
Gentoo/linux Gentoo/PPC
http://dev.gentoo.org/~lu_zero

-- 
gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Removing .la files...

[Petteri Räty]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1080 bytes --]

Luca Barbato kirjoitti:
> Alistair Bush wrote:
>> ++.  I actually have no problem with agreeing with it,  currently my 
>> problem is the complete and utter lack of any _planned_ upgrade path. 
>> What do we think users are going to be saying at the end of the year 
>> when after every sync they have to revdep-rebuild.  Maybe, if we 
>> proceed with this, we investigate what can have its la files removed 
>> and do it all in one go.  therefore ppl won't have to rebuild 
>> kde/gnome ( or any other large and time consuming package) over and 
>> over and over and over and over and over ....... again.  Hell it would 
>> even be better to "batch" a few conversions so that each 
>> revdep-rebuild fixes multiple breakages in one.
> 
> Call that an experiment, do not start screaming but just try to help a bit.
> 
> I think we could have those change masked now and unmasked once we got 
> something sorted better.
> 
> lu
> 

And remember folks that if you don't want to deal with regular breaks, 
you should not be using ~arch.

Regards,
Petteri


[-- Attachment #2: OpenPGP digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 260 bytes --]

[gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[Diego 'Flameeyes' Pettenò]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2055 bytes --]


As those who _did_ ask me directly why I decided to do this did not
think it was worth mailing - as they didn't - I suppose I should chime
in now.

Leaving alone what Petteri already said, this was intended to be a
change on a series of single packages, the domino effect that happened I
didn't foresee, on my system it was just a matter of five packages and a
quick look at the revdeps didn't show _such_ an effect. Well maybe I
expected a few problems with libogg, but yeah that doesn't seem to be
the problem here, the problem seems to be with popt. For what popt is
used (parsing of command-line options) I didn't expect it to creep in in
so many libraries.

And as the problem does not break any system - systems will still run
perfectly - and can be solved with ease - just run a revdep-rebuild - I
did consider this a pretty minor drawback on the whole.

libogg and popt are now masked, and they'll wait a bit before return to
~arch that way. libmpcdec, libmad have very few library users so I don't
expect major problems with those and I left them untouched. Same for
libpam which should really _not_ be used by libraries beside a few very
rare cases, if it was there is something _very_ broken.

Probably the best thing would be to get a better tool than
revdep-rebuild to handle broken .la files, as revdep-rebuild forces a
timewasting rebuild, while a good fix could be just a sed -i -e
's:/usr/lib\(64\)\?/lib\(.*\).la:-l\2:' on all the .la files, installed
and being-installed.

By the way, asking a question is not poisonous.


"Wulf C. Krueger" <philantrop@gentoo.org> writes:

> Especially since even though removing .la files might make sense (with 
> exceptions, of course) we should think about either doing it 
> distribution-wide or not at all.

Can't be done distribution-wide, as stuff would break way worse than
this for sure (stuff is not going to link, or will fail at runtime). You
_have_ to do it on a case-by-case basis.

-- 
Diego "Flameeyes" Pettenò
http://blog.flameeyes.eu/

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 196 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[Petteri Räty]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 409 bytes --]

Diego 'Flameeyes' Pettenò kirjoitti:
> 
> Probably the best thing would be to get a better tool than
> revdep-rebuild to handle broken .la files, as revdep-rebuild forces a
> timewasting rebuild, while a good fix could be just a sed -i -e
> 's:/usr/lib\(64\)\?/lib\(.*\).la:-l\2:' on all the .la files, installed
> and being-installed.
> 

You would have to fix the vdb too.

Regards,
Petteri


[-- Attachment #2: OpenPGP digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 260 bytes --]

[gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[Diego 'Flameeyes' Pettenò]

Petteri Räty <betelgeuse@gentoo.org> writes:

> You would have to fix the vdb too.

Which is the tricky part, and the reason why I didn't instruct anybody
to do the sed on my ChangeLogs.p

-- 
Diego "Flameeyes" Pettenò
http://blog.flameeyes.eu/

-- 
gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[Wulf C. Krueger]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 133 bytes --]

> By the way, asking a question is not poisonous.

Absolutely. Asking about it here was my suggestion.

-- 
Best regards, Wulf

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part. --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 197 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[Mike Frysinger]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 325 bytes --]

On Saturday 19 April 2008, Wulf C. Krueger wrote:
> > By the way, asking a question is not poisonous.
>
> Absolutely. Asking about it here was my suggestion.

his point was you should have asked him directly instead of starting a thread 
on a mailing list to talk about him.  doesnt seem terribly unreasonable.
-mike

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part. --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 827 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] Removing .la files...

[Mike Frysinger]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 527 bytes --]

On Saturday 19 April 2008, Wulf C. Krueger wrote:
> Furthermore, such things should not be decided and pushed through
> unilaterally but be agreed upon here prior to doing this change.
>
> Especially since even though removing .la files might make sense (with
> exceptions, of course) we should think about either doing it
> distribution-wide or not at all.

except that this wont work.  the only workable solution is for libraries to 
opt-in after having been reviewed to make sure they truly are not needed.
-mike

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part. --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 827 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[Mike Frysinger]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 318 bytes --]

On Saturday 19 April 2008, Diego 'Flameeyes' Pettenò wrote:
> libogg and popt are now masked, and they'll wait a bit before return to
> ~arch that way.

please dont leave it like this.  revbump both packages in question minus 
the .la removal portion.  libtool script scuttling is independent of version.
-mike

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part. --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 827 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[Alexis Ballier]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 389 bytes --]

On Sat, 19 Apr 2008 22:18:19 +0200
flameeyes@gmail.com (Diego 'Flameeyes' Pettenò) wrote:

> libogg and popt are now masked, and they'll wait a bit before return
> to ~arch that way.

2 months later, any news on this ? I've been using the unmasked
versions so long; are we going to wait forever ? It's probably better
to unmask it or revert the change at this point.


Alexis.

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 197 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[Luca Barbato]

Alexis Ballier wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Apr 2008 22:18:19 +0200
> flameeyes@gmail.com (Diego 'Flameeyes' Pettenò) wrote:
> 
>> libogg and popt are now masked, and they'll wait a bit before return
>> to ~arch that way.
> 
> 2 months later, any news on this ? I've been using the unmasked
> versions so long; are we going to wait forever ? It's probably better
> to unmask it or revert the change at this point.

We could either pick a week and do a major ebuild update to remove .la 
files when unnecessary or just append a notice about revdep rebuild.

lu

-- 

Luca Barbato
Gentoo Council Member
Gentoo/linux Gentoo/PPC
http://dev.gentoo.org/~lu_zero

-- 
gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[David Leverton]

On Thursday 19 June 2008 08:51:15 Luca Barbato wrote:
> We could either pick a week and do a major ebuild update to remove .la
> files when unnecessary or just append a notice about revdep rebuild.

How do you decide when they're unnecessary?
-- 
gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[Luca Barbato]

David Leverton wrote:
> On Thursday 19 June 2008 08:51:15 Luca Barbato wrote:
>> We could either pick a week and do a major ebuild update to remove .la
>> files when unnecessary or just append a notice about revdep rebuild.
> 
> How do you decide when they're unnecessary?

.la are used for :

1 getting static libraries (pkg-config replaces this use)
2 load plugins using libtool support

if you have a pkg-config and you aren't building plugins you can do 
w/out them.

lu

-- 

Luca Barbato
Gentoo Council Member
Gentoo/linux Gentoo/PPC
http://dev.gentoo.org/~lu_zero

-- 
gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[David Leverton]

On Thursday 19 June 2008 10:36:12 Luca Barbato wrote:
> 1 getting static libraries (pkg-config replaces this use)

Not for library consumers that use libtool but not pkgconfig.

> 2 load plugins using libtool support

Why only plugins?  What's to stop an application from loading a "normal" 
library using libtool's dlopen wrapper (perhaps so it can fail gracefully if 
the library is missing, for example)?
-- 
gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[Luca Barbato]

David Leverton wrote:
> On Thursday 19 June 2008 10:36:12 Luca Barbato wrote:
>> 1 getting static libraries (pkg-config replaces this use)
> 
> Not for library consumers that use libtool but not pkgconfig.
> 
>> 2 load plugins using libtool support
> 
> Why only plugins?  What's to stop an application from loading a "normal" 
> library using libtool's dlopen wrapper (perhaps so it can fail gracefully if 
> the library is missing, for example)?

Corner cases as usual...

lu

-- 

Luca Barbato
Gentoo Council Member
Gentoo/linux Gentoo/PPC
http://dev.gentoo.org/~lu_zero

-- 
gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[David Leverton]

On Thursday 19 June 2008 11:39:44 Luca Barbato wrote:
> Corner cases as usual...

What's that supposed to mean?
-- 
gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[Rémi Cardona]

David Leverton a écrit :

> Not for library consumers that use libtool but not pkgconfig.

I'd be in favor of having a _default_ configuration for Gentoo where 
static binaries are never built except for some key packages (mainly for 
rescue situations).

That way, in a dynamic-lib only system, libtool will expand -l<name> to 
<name>.so. Simple and easy.

As Diego and others have been on a crusade to make sure that system libs 
are used instead of bundled libs, static libs should also be outcast.

> Why only plugins?  What's to stop an application from loading a "normal" 
> library using libtool's dlopen wrapper (perhaps so it can fail gracefully if 
> the library is missing, for example)?

Nothing per se, but I have yet to see any FOSS application dlopen() gtk+ 
or libpng.

*None* of the binary distros out there ship .la files by default. Those 
come with -devel packages. Proof that they are (almost) never needed.

And if an application chooses to dlopen() gtk+ or libpng, the ELF 
headers contain all the dependencies, so the actual content of the .la 
file is also useless in that case.

Cheers :)

Rémi
-- 
gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[David Leverton]

On Thursday 19 June 2008 13:08:09 Rémi Cardona wrote:
> David Leverton a écrit :
> > Not for library consumers that use libtool but not pkgconfig.
>
> I'd be in favor of having a _default_ configuration for Gentoo where
> static binaries are never built except for some key packages (mainly for
> rescue situations).
>
> That way, in a dynamic-lib only system, libtool will expand -l<name> to
> <name>.so. Simple and easy.
>
> As Diego and others have been on a crusade to make sure that system libs
> are used instead of bundled libs, static libs should also be outcast.

I wouldn't be opposed to that, as long as there's a way to override it for 
people who need to.

> > Why only plugins?  What's to stop an application from loading a "normal"
> > library using libtool's dlopen wrapper (perhaps so it can fail gracefully
> > if the library is missing, for example)?
>
> Nothing per se, but I have yet to see any FOSS application dlopen() gtk+
> or libpng.
>
> *None* of the binary distros out there ship .la files by default. Those
> come with -devel packages. Proof that they are (almost) never needed.

Well... the point is that removing them is a (potential) incompatibility with 
the package as shipped by upstream.  As with the previous point, I suppose I 
could tolerate doing it by default, as long as users can choose to install 
them if they need.
--
gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[Olivier Crête]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 492 bytes --]


On Thu, 2008-06-19 at 14:08 +0200, Rémi Cardona wrote:
> > Why only plugins?  What's to stop an application from loading a "normal" 
> > library using libtool's dlopen wrapper (perhaps so it can fail gracefully if 
> > the library is missing, for example)?
> 
> Nothing per se, but I have yet to see any FOSS application dlopen() gtk+ 
> or libpng.

FOSS is the keyword here... the flash plugin dlopens a bunch of stuff


-- 
Olivier Crête
tester@gentoo.org
Gentoo Developer

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 197 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[Mario Fetka]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 559 bytes --]

Am Donnerstag, 19. Juni 2008 16:22:19 schrieb Olivier Crête:
> On Thu, 2008-06-19 at 14:08 +0200, Rémi Cardona wrote:
> > > Why only plugins?  What's to stop an application from loading a
> > > "normal" library using libtool's dlopen wrapper (perhaps so it can fail
> > > gracefully if the library is missing, for example)?
> >
> > Nothing per se, but I have yet to see any FOSS application dlopen() gtk+
> > or libpng.
>
> FOSS is the keyword here... the flash plugin dlopens a bunch of stuff

also kde-3.5 is using libtools dlopen for plugins

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part. --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 197 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[Rémi Cardona]

Olivier Crête a écrit :
> FOSS is the keyword here... the flash plugin dlopens a bunch of stuff

While I haven't checked, I doubt that it uses libltdl to do so :)

> also kde-3.5 is using libtools dlopen for plugins

Yep, but then again, it's for plugins. The real problem is with static 
linking : do we want to support it or not. That's the only question.

I for one don't want to support it, none of the higher gnome packages 
properly work with it (even though we install both .so and .a libraries).

Rémi
-- 
gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[Jeroen Roovers]

On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:20:10 +0100
David Leverton <levertond@googlemail.com> wrote:

> What's to stop an application from loading a "normal" library using
> libtool's dlopen wrapper (perhaps so it can fail gracefully if the
> library is missing, for example)?

That's a pretty basic definition of a plugin. :)


     JeR
-- 
gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[Matthias Schwarzott]

On Donnerstag, 19. Juni 2008, Jeroen Roovers wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:20:10 +0100
>
> David Leverton <levertond@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > What's to stop an application from loading a "normal" library using
> > libtool's dlopen wrapper (perhaps so it can fail gracefully if the
> > library is missing, for example)?
>
> That's a pretty basic definition of a plugin. :)
>
>
>      JeR

As example loading libm.so via dlopen. So I still would not name libm a 
plugin.

Regards
Matthias

-- 
gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files...

[Enrico Weigelt]

Hi folks,

why not just introducing an "staticlib" useflag:
when disabling this, all the static library stuff is kicked off.

For those libs where the static stuff is needed, just leave it 
enabled. And packages which really depend on static libs could
check for the proper useflags.


cu
-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt    ==   metux IT service - http://www.metux.de/
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 Please visit the OpenSource QM Taskforce:
 	http://wiki.metux.de/public/OpenSource_QM_Taskforce
 Patches / Fixes for a lot dozens of packages in dozens of versions:
	http://patches.metux.de/
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-- 
gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Removing .la files...

[Gilles Dartiguelongue]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 764 bytes --]

So we are now a year later,

some people are getting excited at getting rid of .la files again but no
decent solution has been presented yet that I am aware of. We've had two
situations recently:
      * https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=264249 which got
        reverted
      * https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=266016 which author of
        the change don't want to revert

My questions are simple:
      * do we have a plan ? I mean something real, not people doing
        stuff in their "territory" or "lonewolves".
      * do we want to *harm* our users base by changing this starting
        from low level libs ?

ok maybe that's rhetoric questions but I can't help it.

-- 
Gilles Dartiguelongue <eva@gentoo.org>
Gentoo

[-- Attachment #2: Ceci est une partie de message numériquement signée --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 198 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-dev] Removing .la files...

[Mike Frysinger]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 891 bytes --]

On Monday 13 April 2009 17:17:36 Gilles Dartiguelongue wrote:
> So we are now a year later,
>
> some people are getting excited at getting rid of .la files again but no
> decent solution has been presented yet that I am aware of. We've had two
> situations recently:
>       * https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=264249 which got
>         reverted
>       * https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=266016 which author of
>         the change don't want to revert
>
> My questions are simple:
>       * do we have a plan ? I mean something real, not people doing
>         stuff in their "territory" or "lonewolves".
>       * do we want to *harm* our users base by changing this starting
>         from low level libs ?

it either moves ahead sanely, or it doesnt move ahead at all.  Bug 266016 is 
an example of doing it wrong for no real benefit whatsoever.
-mike

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part. --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 836 bytes --]

[gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files

[Duncan]

Enrico Weigelt posted on Sun, 24 Oct 2010 22:09:30 +0200 as excerpted:

> I'm doing some investigation on which .la files are still needed and
> which are not. In general, .la files only are in use by very few
> packages which use them to load plugins (I've seen no package which
> actually requires them for compile-time importing in production).

FWIW, flameeyes has done quite a bit of work on this, but I'm not sure 
it's published anywhere.

FWIW2, I recently took the big jump myself, PKG_INSTALL_MASKing *.la files 
(I run FEATURES=buildpkg so that's effectively install-masking them too, 
but they don't get in the binpkgs at all that way), then rebuilding my 
entire system, and while it's /possible/ certain plugins don't work, I've 
not noticed it.

I needed only one exception, sys-devel/libtool itself.  At least one 
package (IIRC imagemagick but I could be recalling incorrectly) tests for 
a properly configured libtool in the configure script by testing for 
libtool's single *.la file, libltdl.la, so I had to rebuild/reinstall 
libtool itself without that mask.

I handled it using /etc/portage/env/sys-devel/libtool, which contains only 
the single setting:

PKG_INSTALL_MASK=

thus undoing the make.conf setting of:

# dump *.la files
PKG_INSTALL_MASK="*.la"

So as of now:

$ equery b -f '.*\.la$'
 * Searching for .*\.la$ ... 
sys-devel/libtool-2.2.10 (/usr/lib64/libltdl.la)
$ 

That's it! =:^)

Of course, the rebuild process likely wouldn't have gone so smoothly if I 
hadn't already had lafilefixer hooked even before FEATURES=fixlafiles (and 
was running --as-needed in LDFLAGS before that), with the system only 
recently entirely rebuilt when I upgraded to gcc-4.5, so there weren't any 
nasties in the existing *.la files to snag the rebuild. =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Removing .la files

[Nathan Phillip Brink]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1873 bytes --]

On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 09:57:33PM +0000, Duncan wrote:
> Enrico Weigelt posted on Sun, 24 Oct 2010 22:09:30 +0200 as excerpted:
> 
> > I'm doing some investigation on which .la files are still needed and
> > which are not. In general, .la files only are in use by very few
> > packages which use them to load plugins (I've seen no package which
> > actually requires them for compile-time importing in production).
> 
> FWIW, flameeyes has done quite a bit of work on this, but I'm not sure 
> it's published anywhere.
> 
> FWIW2, I recently took the big jump myself, PKG_INSTALL_MASKing *.la files 
> (I run FEATURES=buildpkg so that's effectively install-masking them too, 
> but they don't get in the binpkgs at all that way), then rebuilding my 
> entire system, and while it's /possible/ certain plugins don't work, I've 
> not noticed it.

I use tommy's portage-multilib which doesn't install any .la files
unless if ``shouldnotlink=true'' is found in the .la file. I think
that the only sorts of problems we've encountered are similar to bug
300256 (caused by Gentoo splitting up a package into multiple
ebuilds).

> I needed only one exception, sys-devel/libtool itself.  At least one 
> package (IIRC imagemagick but I could be recalling incorrectly) tests for 
> a properly configured libtool in the configure script by testing for 
> libtool's single *.la file, libltdl.la, so I had to rebuild/reinstall 
> libtool itself without that mask.

This problem is found in an autoconf macro shipped with libtool itself:

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-libtool/2009-12/msg00023.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-libtool/2010-02/msg00046.html

Likewise, portage-multilib is configured by default to install .la
files for the libtool package to work around this bug.

-- 
binki

Look out for missing apostrophes!

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 198 bytes --]