Re: Build from source continues to be broken

Ben Reser <ben_at_reser.org>:
> Our directions are mostly fine though a tad out of date since 1.3.x is
> somewhat old. I've updated them to point to apr 1.4.x and apr-util
> 1.5.x the current release branches for those projects. I've also
> tried to make it clear that you should run buildconf in the directory.
>
> Using APR 1.4.x and APR-UTIL 1.5.x worked fine for me just now. So
> you should be good now.

Yes, the build ran to completion this time. Now I can do the
interesting work, which I've been quiet about because I don't want to
make any promises I can't keep.

> However, I really don't understand the decisions you're making.
> You're choosing the least desirable options here.

Actually I was trying very hard not to make any decisions at all, just
follow the least-effort path laid out by the instructions. My error
seems to have been running autogen.sh without reading INSTALL and
get-deps.sh first. Perhaps autogen.sh should suggest this?

> Unless you have a specific need you ought to be fine just installing
> the packages provided by your distribution.

Alas, no. I couldn't use the sqlite binary on my system because it's
too old - 3.7.9.

> Unfortunately, given the large number of
> distributions and variations on package naming it's difficult to
> provide good instructions for the packages to install.

I understand this full well, which is why I think deprecating the
in-tree build is probably a mistake. Keeping one set of source
dependencies properly tracked is a lot easier than managing
what is in effect a quirk database for an unbounded number
of distro and packaging combinations.

-- 
		Eric S. Raymond