Fix autotools/texinfo/ncurses problem, change autotools package from experimental to optional

[mkoeppe]

The autotools package was changed from optional to experimental in #18563, which made this change for various packages.

The reason for changing autotools (missing xz dependency of libtool) has since been fixed in #21047.

The branch also fixes a build problem of autotools (texinfo) involving ncurses.

CC: @jdemeyer @embray @dimpase

Component: packages: optional

Author: Matthias Koeppe

Branch/Commit: b45c642

Reviewer: Dima Pasechnik

Issue created by migration from https://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/21706

[mkoeppe]

Branch: u/mkoeppe/change_autotools_from_experimental_to_optional

[mkoeppe]

New commits:

d7a8cd5

Change autotools from experimental to optional

[mkoeppe]

Commit: d7a8cd5

[mkoeppe]

Author: Matthias Koeppe

[dimpase]

comment:4

autotools does not build for me, it seems to be a linking problem to ncurses:

...
gcc  -g -O2  -L/home/dima/Sage/sage/local/lib -Wl,-rpath,/home/dima/Sage/sage/local/lib  -o infokey infokey.o key.o ../lib/libtxi.a ../gnulib/lib/libgnu.a  
terminal.o: In function `terminal_get_screen_size':
/home/dima/Sage/sage/local/var/tmp/sage/build/autotools-20141105/src/texinfo-4.13/info/terminal.c:481: undefined reference to `tgetnum'
/home/dima/Sage/sage/local/var/tmp/sage/build/autotools-20141105/src/texinfo-4.13/info/terminal.c:493: undefined reference to `tgetnum'
terminal.o: In function `terminal_goto_xy':
/home/dima/Sage/sage/local/var/tmp/sage/build/autotools-20141105/src/texinfo-4.13/info/terminal.c:235: undefined reference to `tgoto'
terminal.o: In function `terminal_delete_lines':
/home/dima/Sage/sage/local/var/tmp/sage/build/autotools-20141105/src/texinfo-4.13/info/terminal.c:365: undefined reference to `tgoto'
/home/dima/Sage/sage/local/var/tmp/sage/build/autotools-20141105/src/texinfo-4.13/info/terminal.c:365: undefined reference to `tputs'
/home/dima/Sage/sage/local/var/tmp/sage/build/autotools-20141105/src/texinfo-4.13/info/terminal.c:369: undefined reference to `tputs'
terminal.o: In function `terminal_insert_lines':
/home/dima/Sage/sage/local/var/tmp/sage/build/autotools-20141105/src/texinfo-4.13/info/terminal.c:389: undefined reference to `tgoto'
/home/dima/Sage/sage/local/var/tmp/sage/build/autotools-20141105/src/texinfo-4.13/info/terminal.c:389: undefined reference to `tputs'
...

[mkoeppe]

comment:5

I think we'd need a bit more info to debug this...

[dimpase]

log with sage 7.4.rc2

[dimpase]

comment:6

Attachment: autotools-20141105.log

the interesting part of the attached log is

checking build system type... (cached) x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking for tgetent in -lncurses... no
checking for tgetent in -lcurses... no
checking for tgetent in -ltermlib... no
checking for tgetent in -ltermcap... no
checking for tgetent in -lterminfo... no
configure: WARNING: probably need a terminal library, one of: ncurses curses termlib
 termcap terminfo
checking for library with termcap variables... 

while ncurses package is installed; my guess is that perhaps the appropriate -L is missing in LDFLAGS.

Anyhow, I don't see exactly what's happening in spkg-install, and why is does not run ./confgure, which would be an appropriate place to pass proper -L.

[mkoeppe]

comment:7

It does run configure of all the packages involved, in Makefile.build.

Here (on Mac OS X) I see:

[autotools-20141105] checking for tgetent in -lncurses... no
[autotools-20141105] checking for tgetent in -lcurses... no
[autotools-20141105] checking for tgetent in -ltermlib... no
[autotools-20141105] checking for tgetent in -ltermcap... yes
[autotools-20141105] checking for library with termcap variables... 

So on this system, tgetent is not provided by the ncurses library (from Sage's ncurses spkg) either, but rather from libtermcap.

[mkoeppe]

comment:8

Our ncurses package is built using configure option --with-termlib, which causes tgetent and friends to be put into the separate library libtinfo, not libncurses.

The ancient texinfo 4.13 that is used by our autotools package (with comment "texinfo 5.x breaks building old versions of autotools...") does not know about libtinfo.

[sagetrac-git]

Branch pushed to git repo; I updated commit sha1. New commits:

b45c642

Patch the texinfo configure script to check libtinfo

[sagetrac-git]

Changed commit from d7a8cd5 to b45c642

[mkoeppe]

comment:10

Please try with this patch.

[dimpase]

Reviewer: Dima Pasechnik

[dimpase]

comment:11

OK, this works. Although I think we should update this package to newer autotools (not on this ticket though).

[mkoeppe]

comment:12

Thanks!

Could you also take a look at:

• package autotools: Don't depend on $SAGE_LOCAL #21525 needs_review enhancement - package autotools: Don't depend on $SAGE_LOCAL

Updating autotools is #21196.

[vbraun]

Changed branch from u/mkoeppe/change_autotools_from_experimental_to_optional to b45c642