[Xen-devel] NAG: Re: PATCH(with manual interaction): Please document build-dependencies (for Debian) in the README

[Henning Sprang <henning_sprang@xxxxxx>]

NAG!

Is there really nobody with commit rights on the README interested in
changing this?

Quite some users regularly compile new build dependency lists, and it's
regularly sent to this list here, but never anything changes.

This leads to a waste of precious time on hundreds of people per week
who try to build Xen from sources.

Is it an organizational intention to make building Xen from source as
hard as possible, or is it just not recognized how bad this is for the
people trying to get started with this?

Please let me know when I start to become annoying, but I am really a
bit disapponted about the lack of feedback in that matters.

Henning


On Mon, 2008-02-04 at 11:07 +0100, Henning Sprang wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-02-03 at 15:45 -0500, Tom Horsley wrote:
> > Just for reference, I thought I'd document the debian
> > packages I've needed to install to get "make world" to
> > work (starting with a minimal network install of debian).
> > 
> > The packages seem to correspond to dependencies mentioned
> > in the README: gcc, libc6-dev, zlib1g-dev, python-all-dev,
> > libncurses5-dev, libssl-dev, libx11-dev, bridge-utils.
> 
> These are quite outdated and never updated since 3.0.0
> 
> > Then there are all the dependencies I discovered during
> > the many build attempts: gawk, gettext, pciutils-dev,
> > tetex-base, tetex-bin, tetex-brev, tetex-doc, tetex-extra,
> > tetex-frogg, tetex-frogg-doc, transfig, graphviz
> 
> As you said in another mail, for completeness: bcc is needed, too, plus,
> here is what I once figured out (last tested with 3.0.4 or something, I
> guess, as I resorted to user pre-built package some months ago):
> 
> python-dev
> bcc
> binutils-static
> transfig
> swig
> gcc
> zlib1g-dev
> python-dev
> binutils
> transfig
> ncurses-dev
> tetex-base
> tetex-extra
> gs-common
> bin86
> ghostscript
> libvncserver-dev
> libsdl1.2-dev
> libncurses5-dev
> graphviz
> 
> Not all are required for all useage scenario's (e.g.) some can be left
> off if you don't intend to run hvm domains, or graphical stuff, or if
> you don't need the docs.
> 
> > Perhaps not all of these are necessary, I tended to install
> > lots of related stuff "just in case" once I encountered
> > something missing. Odds are good that most of these are
> > only needed for building the docs.
> > 
> > I'm still building, but this may be a complete list (unless
> > something new turns up - but I was really close to getting
> > everything built in the last build :-).
> 
> Might be a good idea to beg the developers to add the (final) list of
> deb packages needed to build into the README of te sources.
> 
> This is a problem/misssing documentation since ever I know Xen, and it
> costed me and obviously everybody who ever tried to build it ages of
> time.
> A small change for one developer with committ access to the README - a
> big spare of time (that could be invested in helping the project
> otherwise) for many source-builders...
> 
> I also have somewhere the list of packages needed to build on Fedora and
> OpenSuse (also, tested with 3.0.4, but better than nothing). As soon as
> someone with the necessary commit rights says he is willing to add that
> info, I will llok the other package lists up!
> 
> Henning
> 
> 
> BTW: yes I know, we're building the engine here, and not the car, so
> it's not for end users, but think of how many engineers can help
> building the car if not everybody has to figure which screws are needed
> on his own, but instead it is documented once, and updated everytime
> somebody adds a new screw to the plan...
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-users mailing list
> Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users


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