Autotooling discussion (was: a weird bug due to ar missing)

[birdie-github]

Trying to compile Audacious 4.4-beta1/GTK3 on Fedora 40:

make
Entering directory src.
Entering directory dbus.
xdpyinfo:  unable to open display "".
[771406:771406:0505/101426.017445:ERROR:filesystem_posix.cc(63)] mkdir : No such file or directory (2)
chrome_crashpad_handler: --database is required
Try 'chrome_crashpad_handler --help' for more information.
[771406:771406:0505/101426.017648:ERROR:zygote_host_impl_linux.cc(99)] Running as root without --no-sandbox is not supported. See https://crbug.com/638180.
Failed to link aud-dbus.a!
make[5]: *** [../../buildsys.mk:241: aud-dbus.a] Error 1
make[4]: *** [../../buildsys.mk:135: all] Error 2
make[3]: *** [../buildsys.mk:145: dbus] Error 2
make[2]: *** [../buildsys.mk:133: all] Error 2
make[1]: *** [buildsys.mk:145: src] Error 2
make: *** [buildsys.mk:133: all] Error 2

1. Like WTF? Why is the build system trying to open a GUI application, to be specific Google Chrome?
2. Why is the build failing exactly? I can't spot the actual error.
3. The configure script doesn't check for the presence of python3-packaging and build is failing a result. Please do.

Using:

sha256sum audacious-4.4-beta1.tar.bz2 audacious-plugins-4.4-beta1.tar.bz2 
3f503060f6e3d6e1ac35f3d5a00e64bdcf26b194e55c7894eaa622421ec9d23c  audacious-4.4-beta1.tar.bz2
805e0a3661d5595e1501568ff1c7999a9d80aa6effed93ad0104edf576d9af97  audacious-plugins-4.4-beta1.tar.bz2

The configure portion:

checking build system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking host system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking target system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking for gcc... gcc
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking for suffix of executables... 
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether the compiler supports GNU C... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to enable C11 features... none needed
checking for g++... g++
checking whether the compiler supports GNU C++... yes
checking whether g++ accepts -g... yes
checking for g++ option to enable C++11 features... none needed
checking for stdio.h... yes
checking for stdlib.h... yes
checking for string.h... yes
checking for inttypes.h... yes
checking for stdint.h... yes
checking for strings.h... yes
checking for sys/stat.h... yes
checking for sys/types.h... yes
checking for unistd.h... yes
checking whether byte ordering is bigendian... no
checking for gcc option to enable large file support... none needed
checking for pkg-config... /usr/bin/pkg-config
checking pkg-config is at least version 0.9.0... yes
checking operating system type... Linux
checking whether the C++ compiler supports -std=gnu++17... yes
checking whether the C/C++ compiler supports -Wtype-limits... yes
checking whether the C/C++ compiler supports -Wno-stringop-truncation... yes
checking whether the C++ compiler supports -Woverloaded-virtual... yes
checking whether byte ordering is bigendian... (cached) no
checking whether ln -s works... yes
checking for rm... /usr/bin/rm
checking for mv... /usr/bin/mv
checking for cp... /usr/bin/cp
checking for ar... no
checking for ranlib... /usr/bin/ranlib
checking for windres... no
checking for library containing pthread_create... none required
checking for glib-2.0 >= 2.32... yes
checking for gmodule-2.0 >= 2.32... yes
checking for gtk+-3.0 >= 3.22... yes
checking for gio-2.0 >= 2.32 gio-unix-2.0 >= 2.32... yes
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
checking for egrep -e... /usr/bin/grep -E
checking for shared library type... ELF
checking for sigwait... yes
checking for ld used by gcc... /usr/bin/ld
checking if the linker (/usr/bin/ld) is GNU ld... yes
checking for shared library run path origin... done
checking 32-bit host C ABI... no
checking for ELF binary format... yes
checking for the common suffixes of directories in the library search path... lib,lib,lib64
checking for iconv... yes
checking for working iconv... yes
checking whether iconv is compatible with its POSIX signature... yes
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking for a race-free mkdir -p... /usr/bin/mkdir -p
checking for a sed that does not truncate output... /usr/bin/sed
checking whether NLS is requested... yes
checking for msgfmt... /usr/bin/msgfmt
checking for gmsgfmt... /usr/bin/msgfmt
checking for xgettext... /usr/bin/xgettext
checking for msgmerge... /usr/bin/msgmerge
checking for CFPreferencesCopyAppValue... no
checking for CFLocaleCopyPreferredLanguages... no
checking for GNU gettext in libc... yes
checking whether to use NLS... yes
checking where the gettext function comes from... libc
checking for gdbus-codegen... yes
checking for tput... /usr/bin/tput
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating audacious.pc
config.status: creating buildsys.mk
config.status: creating extra.mk
config.status: creating man/audtool.1
config.status: creating man/audacious.1
config.status: creating src/libaudcore/audio.h
config.status: creating win32/audacious.nsi
config.status: creating win32/override/README.txt
config.status: creating config.h
config.status: executing po-directories commands

Configuration:

  Install path:                           /usr/local

  D-Bus support:                          yes
  GTK support:                            yes
  Qt support:                             no
  libarchive support:                     no
  Valgrind analysis support:              no

[birdie-github]

OK, I had a cr script but Audacious needs something else:

/bin/sh: line 33: cr: command not found
Failed to link libguess.a!
make[5]: *** [../../buildsys.mk:241: libguess.a] Error 1
make[4]: *** [../../buildsys.mk:135: all] Error 2
make[3]: *** [../buildsys.mk:145: libguess] Error 2
make[3]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
Successfully compiled aud-dbus.c.
/bin/sh: line 33: cr: command not found
Failed to link aud-dbus.a!
make[5]: *** [../../buildsys.mk:241: aud-dbus.a] Error 1
make[4]: *** [../../buildsys.mk:135: all] Error 2
make[3]: *** [../buildsys.mk:145: dbus] Error 2
make[2]: *** [../buildsys.mk:133: all] Error 2
make[1]: *** [buildsys.mk:145: src] Error 2
make: *** [buildsys.mk:133: all] Error 2

What is cr and why does Audacious need it? Fedora 40 doesn't have anything by this name.

[birdie-github]

Must Audacious be built using Meson?

What is this section in audacious-4.4-beta1/buildsys.mk.in ?

        if ${AR} cr $@ $$objs && ${RANLIB} $@; then \
            ${LINK_OK}; \
        else \
            rm -f $@; false; \
            ${LINK_FAILED}; \
        fi; \

[birdie-github]

Fedora 40 has this:

avogadro2-langpack-ar.noarch : Arabic language data for avogadro2
default-fonts-ar.noarch : Metapackage to install default fonts for Arabic
glibc-langpack-ar.x86_64 : Locale data for Arabic
golang-github-blakesmith-ar-devel.noarch : Golang ar archive file library
hunspell-ar.noarch : Arabic hunspell dictionaries
kde-i18n-Arabic.noarch : Arabic(ar) language support for KDE3
kde-l10n-ar.noarch : Arabic language support for KDE Applications
langpacks-ar.noarch : Arabic langpacks meta-package
langpacks-core-ar.noarch : Arabic langpacks core meta-package
langpacks-fonts-ar.noarch : Metapackage to install extra fonts for Arabic
libreoffice-help-ar.x86_64 : Arabic help for LibreOffice
libreoffice-langpack-ar.x86_64 : Arabic language pack for LibreOffice
proj-data-ar.noarch : Argentina datum grids for Proj
python3-arpy.noarch : Library for accessing "ar" files

I'm not sure this is what I'm missing. I'm giving up. buildsys.mk.in has a ton of ${AR} and I'm not sure what that is and why it's being used.

[birdie-github]

Can you please drop configure altogether?

We've already had a huge fiasco with XZ-utils which used it to sneak in a backdoor, a 409,319 bytes script is not conducive to understanding what is failing.

Maybe you could switch to CMAKE or Meson and drop autotools.

[jlindgren90]

This is the issue I think:

checking for ar... no

ar is part of GNU binutils and is a standard tool for working with static libraries (.a files). I am not sure why that is missing on your system but it's required to build Audacious.

[birdie-github]

I vaguely remember that I was trying to compile something else, so I renamed /usr/bin/ar to ar.bak.

Sorry for the false alarm.

[birdie-github]

@jlindgren90

I still think it's worth dropping the configure script :-)

[mschwendt]

Just for the record, preliminary rpms of 4.4-beta1 for Fedora releases are found in this repo:
https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/mschwendt/audacious-next/

[birdie-github]

@mschwendt

Thanks!

Fedora comes with an extremely castrated ffmpeg, no faad2, I don't use RPMFusion, thus I've been compiling my own Audacious/XMMS since forever.

[mschwendt]

Building only the "ffaudio" plugin would suffice. No matter whether from source or as a local/personal RPM package.

[radioactiveman]

@mschwendt: Could you please try using Meson for Audacious 4.4 on Fedora and share your feedback?

I'm aware of these Meson users to build Audacious:

• Debian / Ubuntu
• OpenSuse
• Arch Linux / Manjaro
• Alpine Linux
• FreeBSD
• macOS (Homebrew)
• Potentially even more?

Fedora and Gentoo still rely on autotools.

@jlindgren90: Which systems come to your mind which we additionally support? I like the idea to deprecate autotools for Audacious 4.5.

[jlindgren90]

I think we should recommend meson even for 4.4, but keep autoconf/buildsys as a supported option for older systems that don't have a new enough meson version.

[mschwendt]

@radioactiveman Yeah, I will do that.

[radioactiveman]

Thanks Michael for maintaining Audacious for Fedora for many years and being active here as well. That's great for the collaboration between upstream development and package maintainers.