Re: some questions on installing Ada on Linux

[brbarkstrom@gmail.com]

On Friday, July 4, 2014 6:16:10 AM UTC-4, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
> some basic questions. Goggling these is giving me hard so
> 
> I thought I ask here.
> 
> 
> 
> What is the correct way to install Ada on Linux these days?
> 
> I am on Linux mint 17.
> 
> 
> 
> 1) Should one install GNAT on Linux by downloading tar files from
> 
> http://libre.adacore.com  (GPL 2014 edition) or use
> 
> 
> 
>    sudo apt-get install gnat-4.8
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> 
> 
> 2) Will the sudo installation install all the stuff listed at
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> libre.adacore.com? including GPS editor and all the other
> 
> packages?
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> 
> 
> 3) Which is more recent, gnat-4.8 or GPL 2014 edition?
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> 
> 
> 4) When I go to http://libre.adacore.com/download/configurations
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> is there a way to tell it to check everything for download,
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> without one having to spend 1 hr clicking on the check-box
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> for each item? I do not see "select all"
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> 
> 
> It is really confusing having Ada/GNAT in 2 different places.
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> Why not have one place to install Ada from so it is less
> 
> confusing to users?
> 
> 
> 
> --Nasser

Most of the discussion in response to this question concentrates on 
licensing issues.

There is also a technical one.  The Linux distributions appear to maintain
provenance and metadata on a package basis.  The AdaCore GNAT
approach maintains the provenance and metadata on a compilation
unit basis.  Thus, if you look at the Debian Policy on Ada (a very
helpful document), you'll find that this distribution is not fully
compliant with the Ada library management standard.  I expect that
Red Hat, Fedora, and SuSE follow a similar centralized package maintenance
model.  AdaCore maintains the finer granularity approach and updates
the GPL code on a roughly annual basis.  The GPL licensing is one
component to enter the discussion.  This technical issue is another.
If you're only going to do Ada development and if you're into high
integrity language technologies, then the AdaCore nightly regression
testing may be important to you.

See also my post on "A Cautious Guide to Installing AdaCore GNAT GPL
on Ubuntu Linux".

Bruce B.