[PULL] linuxdoc, other build fixes

[Gaetan Nadon]

On Tue, 2010-04-27 at 15:48 +1000, Peter Hutterer wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 07:12:54PM -0700, Keith Packard wrote:
> > On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 11:48:42 -0500, "Yaakov (Cygwin/X)" <yselkowitz at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> > > Keith,
> > > 
> > > Please note that the "dmx: Ignore linuxdoc generated docs" patch will 
> > > force those running 'make dist' (primarily you and whot) to have a 
> > > working linuxdoc installation.  If that requirement is not desirable, 
> > > then adding just the .gitignore part of that patch will still be helpful 
> > > for those working from git.
> > 
> > I think that git shouldn't contain any bits generated automatically as a
> > part of the usual build process. However, I'd love to know if whot has
> > issues with requiring 'linuxdoc' as a part of the 'make distcheck' process.


This patch proposed the removal of the generated .txt from git while
preserving the ability to read it under a different extension. 
http://lists.x.org/archives/xorg-devel/2010-February/005566.html


> 
> no complaints here. If it can be generated, it should be generated,
> regardless of the dependencies required (within reason, of course).
> 

We have been discussing this on the list not too long ago. It has always
been required to have the doc toolchain installed in order to run
distcheck. This is required as a decision has been made to include some
generated files in the tarball because some platforms don't have the
tools to generate them and still want to read the doc or install them.

This leads to complex makefiles and behaviours that are not intuitive.
When distcheck fails, it is not obvious to understand why either. In the
last round of patches, improvements were made protecting the build
against missing or down level tools. I am afraid that in a few weeks or
months time, we will be discussing this yet another time.

The root cause is simple: not all platforms have the tools to generate
the docs. There maybe a solution: unlike executable code, docs do not
need to be built on all platforms. A "doc only" tarball could be
produced and posted like any other package.


> Please document this somewhere on the wiki though, because I'm sure it will
> come up at some point as a question on the list :)

I have documented all the issues in this wiki:

http://www.x.org/wiki/Development/Documentation/WritingDocumentation



> Cheers,
>   Peter
> _______________________________________________
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