Debian Family, GNAT version map

Debian Family, GNAT version map

[Patrick]

I am running xubuntu(I am a gnome 3 refugee ). I just encountered this bug:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=564232

I just installed debian as a VM and it is already  fixed there.

There are so many versions of linux and even so many debian  variations. I am wondering if anyone has tried to document the different versions?

I could try to put together some sort of list?

gnatmake --version does not give the specific build, is there a flag for this?

Re: Debian Family, GNAT version map

[Vasiliy Molostov]

Patrick <patrick@spellingbeewinnars.org> писал(а) в своём письме Tue, 14  
Aug 2012 11:17:47 +0400:

> I am running xubuntu(I am a gnome 3 refugee ). I just encountered this  
> bug:
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=564232
>
> I just installed debian as a VM and it is already  fixed there.
>
> There are so many versions of linux and even so many debian  variations.  
> I am wondering if anyone has tried to document the different versions?
>
> I could try to put together some sort of list?
>
> gnatmake --version does not give the specific build, is there a flag for  
> this?

I have used libre.adacore.com GNAT, downloaded by hand and installed by  
GNAT script on ubuntu distro (both 64 & 32 versions) and
was able to build polyorb without any problem - got all examples working.

Only one thing I have got erroneous was TLS dependency on libssl.a against  
libssl.so (2011, don't know as of 2012 since only just have upgraded for  
now)

I wonder what they are doing in the debian with packaging so these become  
unstable?

-- 
Написано в почтовом клиенте браузера Opera: http://www.opera.com/mail/

Re: Debian Family, GNAT version map

[Ludovic Brenta]

Vasiliy Molostov writes on comp.lang.ada:
> Patrick писал(а) в своём письме Tue,
> 14 Aug 2012 11:17:47 +0400:
>
>> I am running xubuntu(I am a gnome 3 refugee ). I just encountered
>> this bug: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=564232
>>
>> I just installed debian as a VM and it is already fixed there.
>>
>> There are so many versions of linux and even so many debian
>> variations. I am wondering if anyone has tried to document the
>> different versions?
>>
>> I could try to put together some sort of list?

Debian has a "Derivatives Census" [1] where maintainers of derivatives
can volunteer to document their work.  However, the nature of free
software means there is no way to be sure that all derivatives are
listed there.

[1] http://wiki.debian.org/Derivatives/Census

This census contains no derivative aimed for Ada programmers.  The only
distribution that is specifically designed for Ada programmers is Debian
itself.  Thus the support for Ada in every derivative will, by
definition, lag behind that in Debian.

>> gnatmake --version does not give the specific build, is there a flag
>> for this?

dpkg -l gnat*

> I have used libre.adacore.com GNAT, downloaded by hand and installed
> by GNAT script on ubuntu distro (both 64 & 32 versions) and was able
> to build polyorb without any problem - got all examples working.
>
> Only one thing I have got erroneous was TLS dependency on libssl.a
> against libssl.so (2011, don't know as of 2012 since only just have
> upgraded for now)
>
> I wonder what they are doing in the debian with packaging so these
> become unstable?

The GPL Edition from AdaCore contains a coordinated snapshot of the
sources of everything, notably the compiler and PolyORB which are very
tightly coupled.  PolyORB relies on special support for Annex E built
into the compiler and runtime library.  This works well for those who
can and will recompile most everything from source and accept the pure
GPL for the Ada runtime library.

Debian does not use GNAT GPL Edition, instead it uses the GCC compiler
from the Free Software Foundation, whose runtime library grants the
Runtime Library Exception.  The relase cycle of the FSF is different
from that of GNAT GPL Edition; thus no release of GCC from the FSF is
identical to any GNAT GPL Edition (see Debian Policy for Ada, section
2.3.4[2]).

[2] http://people.debian.org/~lbrenta/debian-ada-policy.html#Timeline-of-GNAT-releases

Because of the tight coupling between PolyORB and GNAT, no PolyORB GPL
Edition can work out of the box with a release of GNAT from the FSF.
Some patching is always necessary.  The PolyORB pakage maintainer
chooses a revision of PolyORB from AdaCore's Subversion repository (as
opposed to a GPL Edition) so that it matches the FSF compiler better.
This is explained in the changelog of the polyorb package in Debian:

   * new upstream version : 2.8~20110207 (Subversion revision 170156) chosen
     because it immediately precedes a change of
     System.Partition_Interface.PCS_Version, which requires gnat > 4.6.
     - use 0f4393e4f6d42f8d093a29b8fa35aebf4eb4a5f4 from
       com.adacore.polyorb.debian

However the PolyORB maintainer, Xavier Grave, goes to great lengths that
this package is very stable; IIUC he uses it in mission-critical
programs (narval).

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Debian Family, GNAT version map

[Patrick]

Hi Ludovic

I was hoping you would reply :)

So I did as you had suggested and ran dpkg -l gnat*.

I am on Xubuntu(I am planning on switching) and I got this:


:dpkg -l gnat*
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name           Version        Description
+++-==============-==============-============================================
ii  gnat           4.6ubuntu1     GNU Ada compiler
un  gnat-3.1       <none>         (no description available)
un  gnat-3.2       <none>         (no description available)
un  gnat-3.3       <none>         (no description available)
un  gnat-3.4       <none>         (no description available)
un  gnat-3.5       <none>         (no description available)
un  gnat-4.0       <none>         (no description available)
un  gnat-4.1       <none>         (no description available)
un  gnat-4.2       <none>         (no description available)
un  gnat-4.3       <none>         (no description available)
un  gnat-4.4       <none>         (no description available)
un  gnat-4.4-base  <none>         (no description available)
ii  gnat-4.6       4.6.3-1ubuntu4 GNU Ada compiler
ii  gnat-4.6-base  4.6.3-1ubuntu4 GNU Ada compiler (common files)
un  gnat-4.6-doc   <none>         (no description available)
un  gnat-4.6-sjlj  <none>         (no description available)
un  gnat-doc       <none>         (no description available)
ii  gnat-gps       5.0-6          integrated development environment for C and
ii  gnat-gps-commo 5.0-6          integrated development environment for C and
ii  gnat-gps-doc   5.0-6          integrated development environment for C and


The part here that worries me is the 4.6.3-1ubuntu4 portion. I am guessing other downstream Debian derivatives do not just take the prebuilt "debian-debian" binaries wholesale but instead recompile the sources again.

It may be hard to know if the package is now the same as the 4.6.3 Debian version. If the packager had trouble with something they could modify something and introduce bugs.

Do you have any suggestions on how to track combat version skewing or is this largely a non-issue?

It would be pretty easy for me to set up a bunch of distros under VirtualBox and then run dpkg -l gnat* on them but I guess it may not be that easy...

Re: Debian Family, GNAT version map

[Ludovic Brenta]

Patrick writes on comp.lang.ada:
> I was hoping you would reply :)
>
> So I did as you had suggested and ran dpkg -l gnat*.
>
> I am on Xubuntu(I am planning on switching) and I got this:
>
>
> :dpkg -l gnat*
> Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
> | Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
> |/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
> ||/ Name           Version        Description
> +++-==============-==============-============================================
> ii  gnat           4.6ubuntu1     GNU Ada compiler
> ii  gnat-4.6       4.6.3-1ubuntu4 GNU Ada compiler
> ii  gnat-4.6-base  4.6.3-1ubuntu4 GNU Ada compiler (common files)
> ii  gnat-gps       5.0-6          integrated development environment for C and
> ii  gnat-gps-commo 5.0-6          integrated development environment for C and
> ii  gnat-gps-doc   5.0-6          integrated development environment for C and

[I removed the lines concerning packages not installed on your system]

> The part here that worries me is the 4.6.3-1ubuntu4 portion. I am
> guessing other downstream Debian derivatives do not just take the
> prebuilt "debian-debian" binaries wholesale but instead recompile the
> sources again.

Not only that, they also occasionally change the sources; that's why
they introduce a new version number.  The other potential problem with
derivatives is their disregard for the release cycles of Debian.  I plan
and do all of my work so that each *stable* release of Debian contains a
consistent and (as far as feasible) bug-free Ada platform.  However,
between releases, there is no guarantee that the packages in Debian
*unstable* or *testing* are consistent with one another.  This is
particularly true between the time I upload a new gnat (the first
package in a transition) and the time I upload gnat-gps (usually the
last package in a transition because it depends on many other packages).
So, if a derivative distribution takes a "snapshot" of Debian unstable,
what you get might really be very... unstable.

FYI, here is what I have on my Debian testing, upgraded today:

ii  gnat             4.6      GNU Ada compiler
ii  gnat-4.6         4.6.3-5  GNU Ada compiler
ii  gnat-4.6-base    4.6.3-5  GNU Ada compiler (common files)
ii  gnat-4.6-sjlj    4.6.3-5  GNU Ada compiler (setjump/longjump runtime library)
ii  gnat-gps         5.0-12   integrated development environment for C and Ada
ii  gnat-gps-common  5.0-12   integrated development environment for C and Ada (common files)
ii  gnat-gps-dbg     5.0-12   integrated development environment for C and Ada (debugging symbols)
ii  gnat-gps-doc     5.0-12   integrated development environment for C and Ada (documentation)

> It may be hard to know if the package is now the same as the 4.6.3
> Debian version. If the packager had trouble with something they could
> modify something and introduce bugs.

No, it's not hard to know.  If the version number is different then the
package is different.  Read /usr/share/doc/gnat-4.6/changelog.Debian.gz
to know what the downstream packager changed.

> Do you have any suggestions on how to track combat version skewing or
> is this largely a non-issue?

Ubuntu has introduced subtle problems in the past but recent releases
have been fairly solid AFAICS.  I cannot be positive because I receive
almost no feedback from Ubuntu users or packagers.  So, use Debian
stable and stop worrying about forced upgrades :)

You can also use Debian testing part of the time (i.e. before a
transition starts and after it is complete).  Usually I announce the
transition starts and ends here on comp.lang.ada and on
debian-ada@lists.debian.org.

> It would be pretty easy for me to set up a bunch of distros under
> VirtualBox and then run dpkg -l gnat* on them but I guess it may not
> be that easy...

VirtualBox is overkill, you can use chroot instead, see
http://lists.debian.org/debian-ada/2010/02/msg00003.html for a recipe.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Debian Family, GNAT version map

[Patrick]

Hi Ludovic

WOW! this reallllly sucks. Your hard work is not being propagated down stream then.

I like Debain stable but unfortunately I only spend < 1% of my time with Ada and have to think about other issues. I had some trouble migrating emails to Debian-Debian and a bunch of other little things that are totally off topic.

Some downstream distros offer other things. I like Trisquel for instance. It a free-to-the-Nth-degree distro. They have no binary blobs in the kernel and many other things like flash are removed.

Unfortunately gnat + gcc are pretty old and pretty screwed and I encountered bugs I wouldn't have had an issue with on Debian stable.

I wonder if there is a test suite to run on all the gnat* packages? I could run it. I know VirtualBox is heavy but I could also run it on OpenIndiana(open Solaris fork) and Windoze too.

I am pretty overloaded(ended up in emergency department twice in the past 3 weeks) but I would like to help. If there was any assignments you had for me, I would do my best to help

Re: Debian Family, GNAT version map

[Ludovic Brenta]

Patrick writes:
> Hi Ludovic
>
> WOW! this reallllly sucks. Your hard work is not being propagated down
> stream then.

That's not what I meant.  My hard work does propagate into all
derivatives; but this happens at the derivatives' discretion and with
their timing, not mine.  I also stated that bug fixes appear in Debian
first.

> I like Debain stable but unfortunately I only spend < 1% of my time
> with Ada and have to think about other issues. I had some trouble
> migrating emails to Debian-Debian and a bunch of other little things
> that are totally off topic.
>
> Some downstream distros offer other things. I like Trisquel for
> instance. It a free-to-the-Nth-degree distro. They have no binary
> blobs in the kernel and many other things like flash are removed.

Debian does the same; the non-free blobs are separate, not available by
default and not included in the installation CDs but one can choose to
use them.

> Unfortunately gnat + gcc are pretty old and pretty screwed and I
> encountered bugs I wouldn't have had an issue with on Debian stable.
>
> I wonder if there is a test suite to run on all the gnat* packages? I
> could run it. I know VirtualBox is heavy but I could also run it on
> OpenIndiana(open Solaris fork) and Windoze too.

GNAT itself has a test suite that runs as part of the build.  Only a few
other packages have test suites.  There is no overall test suite that
verifies the integration between packages.  Creating and maintaining one
would be a huge undertaking.

> I am pretty overloaded(ended up in emergency department twice in the
> past 3 weeks) but I would like to help. If there was any assignments
> you had for me, I would do my best to help

I suggest you concentrate on one thing and only one, then.  If you are
interested in Debian packaging, fine, let that be your one area of
expertise.  If you'd rather learn Ada and develop programs with it, I
suggest you install Debian stable (possibly in a chroot or VirtualBox)
and forget about all these pesky issues.  I've decided to concentrate on
packaging precisely so that others, especially beginners, can
concentrate on programming.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Debian Family, GNAT version map

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 22:39:56 +0200, Ludovic Brenta wrote:

> I suggest you concentrate on one thing and only one, then.  If you are
> interested in Debian packaging, fine, let that be your one area of
> expertise.  If you'd rather learn Ada and develop programs with it, I
> suggest you install Debian stable (possibly in a chroot or VirtualBox)
> and forget about all these pesky issues.  I've decided to concentrate on
> packaging precisely so that others, especially beginners, can
> concentrate on programming.

Absolutely. Packaged Ada for Debian and Fedora is a great relief to the
situation of not so distant times when GNAT GPL was the only, very
uncomfortable, option for Linux.

Yet, there is still the problem that people wishing to make their work
available to public must nonetheless dive deep down into the mess of dbpkg
and rpmbuild. Something should be done about it. If we could not bring
Linux Ada policies in order, we should have some backend for the GPR which
would automate packaging.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Debian Family, GNAT version map

[tonyg]

On Monday, 20 August 2012 08:34:38 UTC+1, Dmitry A. Kazakov  wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 22:39:56 +0200, Ludovic Brenta wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> > I suggest you concentrate on one thing and only one, then.  If you are
> 
> > interested in Debian packaging, fine, let that be your one area of
> 
> > expertise.  If you'd rather learn Ada and develop programs with it, I
> 
> > suggest you install Debian stable (possibly in a chroot or VirtualBox)
> 
> > and forget about all these pesky issues.  I've decided to concentrate on
> 
> > packaging precisely so that others, especially beginners, can
> 
> > concentrate on programming.
> 
> 
> 
> Absolutely. Packaged Ada for Debian and Fedora is a great relief to the
> 
> situation of not so distant times when GNAT GPL was the only, very
> 
> uncomfortable, option for Linux.
> 
> 
> 
> Yet, there is still the problem that people wishing to make their work
> 
> available to public must nonetheless dive deep down into the mess of dbpkg
> 
> and rpmbuild. Something should be done about it. If we could not bring
> 
> Linux Ada policies in order, we should have some backend for the GPR which
> 
> would automate packaging.
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Dmitry A. Kazakov
> 
> http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

In deed, the work both you and Xavier do on Gnat Ada / polyorb on Debian is not just important for learners, but critical for folk  like me using it. 

Re: Debian Family, GNAT version map

[Ludovic Brenta]

Dmitry A. Kazakov writes:
> On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 22:39:56 +0200, Ludovic Brenta wrote:
>> I suggest you concentrate on one thing and only one, then.  If you
>> are interested in Debian packaging, fine, let that be your one area
>> of expertise.  If you'd rather learn Ada and develop programs with
>> it, I suggest you install Debian stable (possibly in a chroot or
>> VirtualBox) and forget about all these pesky issues.  I've decided to
>> concentrate on packaging precisely so that others, especially
>> beginners, can concentrate on programming.
>
> Absolutely. Packaged Ada for Debian and Fedora is a great relief to
> the situation of not so distant times when GNAT GPL was the only, very
> uncomfortable, option for Linux.
>
> Yet, there is still the problem that people wishing to make their work
> available to public must nonetheless dive deep down into the mess of
> dbpkg and rpmbuild. Something should be done about it. If we could not
> bring Linux Ada policies in order, we should have some backend for the
> GPR which would automate packaging.

In the mean time, here is my advice for upstream authors of free
software: don't do packaging at all.  Instead, do like the FSF and
provide only the sources of your software; let specialized packagers do
the rest.  Make their job as easy as possible:

- avoid recursive Makefiles
- use GNAT project files (if you use GNAT)
- do not include copies of third-party software in your software
  (instead, document which third-party software is required and where to
  get it).
- collaborate with them by reviewing and accepting patches
- use a public version control system
- use a public bug tracking system
- use a public mailing list with searchable archives

Your "cross-platform" distribution should therefore consist of sources
and very simple instructions for building them.

A common, cross-platform policy for Ada would be desirable.  Debian and
Fedora have already started to collaborate towards a common directory
structure (to be implemented, on Debian's side, in the relase after
Debian 7 "Wheezy").  But even with a common policy, other things are
likely to make packages incompatible at some level anyway.  For example
various distributions might choose different sets of packages to
include; different versions of GCC as the default compiler; all combined
with different release schedules.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Debian Family, GNAT version map

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Mon, 20 Aug 2012 11:39:22 +0200, Ludovic Brenta wrote:

> Dmitry A. Kazakov writes:
>> On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 22:39:56 +0200, Ludovic Brenta wrote:
>>> I suggest you concentrate on one thing and only one, then.  If you
>>> are interested in Debian packaging, fine, let that be your one area
>>> of expertise.  If you'd rather learn Ada and develop programs with
>>> it, I suggest you install Debian stable (possibly in a chroot or
>>> VirtualBox) and forget about all these pesky issues.  I've decided to
>>> concentrate on packaging precisely so that others, especially
>>> beginners, can concentrate on programming.
>>
>> Absolutely. Packaged Ada for Debian and Fedora is a great relief to
>> the situation of not so distant times when GNAT GPL was the only, very
>> uncomfortable, option for Linux.
>>
>> Yet, there is still the problem that people wishing to make their work
>> available to public must nonetheless dive deep down into the mess of
>> dbpkg and rpmbuild. Something should be done about it. If we could not
>> bring Linux Ada policies in order, we should have some backend for the
>> GPR which would automate packaging.
> 
> In the mean time, here is my advice for upstream authors of free
> software: don't do packaging at all.  Instead, do like the FSF and
> provide only the sources of your software; let specialized packagers do
> the rest.  Make their job as easy as possible:
> 
> - avoid recursive Makefiles
> - use GNAT project files (if you use GNAT)
> - do not include copies of third-party software in your software
>   (instead, document which third-party software is required and where to
>   get it).
> - collaborate with them by reviewing and accepting patches
> - use a public version control system
> - use a public bug tracking system
> - use a public mailing list with searchable archives
> 
> Your "cross-platform" distribution should therefore consist of sources
> and very simple instructions for building them.

Hmm, while I agree that a pure Ada sources distribution is much easier to
handle, and make should be send back to hell, the problem is that if Ada
software uses any third party libraries, be it Ada or anything else, that
becomes a huge problem for the end user to follow the dependencies.
Packaging has the advantage of keeping versions consistent.

Ada community reached the stage when pre-packaging becomes a requirement,
IMO. Your own contribution is the best proof of that.

> A common, cross-platform policy for Ada would be desirable.  Debian and
> Fedora have already started to collaborate towards a common directory
> structure (to be implemented, on Debian's side, in the relase after
> Debian 7 "Wheezy").  But even with a common policy, other things are
> likely to make packages incompatible at some level anyway.  For example
> various distributions might choose different sets of packages to
> include; different versions of GCC as the default compiler; all combined
> with different release schedules.

It was discussed, so I only repeat that we need a dedicated Ada resource
like sourceforge or freshmeat to accumulate Ada projects and serve as the
upstream for Linux/Windows/Mac/... distributions. This resource could
indeed automate packaging, at least theoretically it could straight from
the code base and the dependencies maintained by the resource.

But for now, people *must* package their work for Debian and Fedora. (I say
this to our Lapack guys, sorry)

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Debian Family, GNAT version map

[Ludovic Brenta]

Dmitry A. Kazakov writes:
> But for now, people *must* package their work for Debian and
> Fedora. (I say this to our Lapack guys, sorry)

Yes but these people are not necessarily the upstream authors.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.