Re: Recompiling?

["Ludovic Brenta" <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

Dr. Adrian Wrigley a écrit :
> On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 08:26:56 -0700, Ludovic Brenta wrote:
> > http://www.ada-france.org/debian/debian-ada-policy.html
>
> is the page correct in saying:
> "ASIS, Glade and Florist are not currently available for GCC 3.4"
> or is this now out of date?

The page is still correct, unfortunately.  I would have updated it if
events had warranted it.

> OK.  I know this question gets asked a lot, but things seem to
> be in continual flux:

No, it is not; but you are correct that the question is being asked
a lot.  Wishful thinking alone does not change the answer, however,
and only creates this illusion of "flux".

> Which free GNAT version would be best for meeting these criteria:
> 1) Linux, x86 architecture
> 2) with GLADE, PolyORB, ASIS, Florist
> 3) stable and robust for serious use
>
> The answer seems to be to use GNAT 3.4, but you have to compile
> everything yourself :(

No, the answer is GNAT 3.15p, and as a consequence you don't have to
compile anything :)  well, nobody has yet volunteered to package
PolyORB for Debian, or any other distribution.

> What if I want x86_64 LP64 mode?  Is this straightforward?

Then you are out of luck.  With GCC 3.4 or 4.0, you can have x86_64
LP64 mode but not ASIS or GLADE.

> Martin has some helpful information at:
> http://ada.krischik.com/

Yes.

> but I'd much rather not spend the time and effort trying to
> build a complete tool chain and libraries :(  Are we going
> to see a suite of Debian packages in the near future?
> I wish I had time to help out!

Sarge (the current Debian stable distribution) contains a full suite
of Ada packages, united together by the Debian Policy for Ada.  To my
knowledge there are 48 binary packages produced from 22 sources.  In
addition, the packages gnat-3.3 and gnat-3.4 are provided for
experimental use.

You can help out in several ways:

1) Try to persuade AdaCore to release a new "p" version of GNAT, based
   on a recent GCC, with ASIS and GLADE.  This would trigger a change
   in compilers in Debian (see section 2.8 of the Debian Policy for
   Ada).

2) Package more software for Debian.

3) Experiment with Martin Krischik's ASIS for GCC 4.0 and AdaCore's CVS
   repository for GLADE, and package them for Debian unstable.  Note
   that neither of these two projects have announced a "stable, robust
   for serious use" release, so this would be experimental.  But Debian
   "unstable" is appropriate for this.  Also, PolyORB might replace
   GLADE; you'd want to coordinate with the developers of PolyORB.

Note that etch has switched its default C and C++ compilers to GCC 4.0;
all C++ libraries are being recompiled with g++-4.0. Also, gnat-4.0 is
already in etch.  If and when ASIS and GLADE are provided for it, I
will
declare it the new default Ada compiler as well, and recompile all Ada
packages with it, even on the newly supported architecture, amd64.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.