[Bf-committers] keeping it cross platform

[Michel Selten]

Hi,

first: I'm sorry that I didn't make any updates to building blender docs
and Makefile stuff. I had some troubles with my system and ended up
reinstalling everything. I'm now running the latest (stable) stuff on
Linux and it works great!
Now I can focus more on doing stuff for Blender...

On Mon, 2002-12-30 at 12:35, Hans Lambermont wrote:
> > 1) Blender developers (the people who have cvs access).
> >    This group of people like to work with the latest stuff and should be
> >    able to do so as long as the other two groups don't have to bother
> >    with following every latest tiny feature in a (Maybe even obscure)
> >    developer tool.
> 
> I'm not sure if we want this already. At NaN we occasionally tried the
> latest compiler, the latest etc. but general development was always done
> with stable/release 'level' tools.
> 
> This does not mean that the path to try new stuff out should be closed,
> it just talks about the defaults.
> 
> I'm also sure a lot of ppl on this list disagree with me here ;-)
I'm not one of them. In the building_blender.xml file I will try to list
the tools needed for this group only (think of autoconf, automake, cvs)
The versions listed in this table should be the minimum for Blender
developers, anything newer is not a problem. Is it ok to make the
following statement in the document:

Stuff that gets generated by autoconf and automake needs to be generated
by the versions of those tools listed in the document.

{I will write a better paragraph in the document ultimately.}

> 
> > 2) Users who build from source (those who download a source package).
> 
> I think this is what we should target at. Download and compile on one of
> the supported platforms, probably install some extra libs for that
> platform, in the platform default way (!) and go.
This list is already in the building_blender.xml file. A new update will
be available soon.

> 
> > 3) Users who install a binary (RedHat, Debian, ... Windows MSI package).
> 
> The 'release' following crowd :) The tar.gz stuff, of course. These will
> be advertised on the website like before.
Again, the list of requirements is in the building_blender.xml file.
This is a list of shared libraries that may be needed for running
Blender.

> We should first agree on the supported platform list, then which version
> of these platforms (-release, -stable, whatever).
Ah, a new section needs to be introduced in the document :)

> 
> I'll make a start, ppl. please complete/fix this list :
> 
>     darwin-5.2-powerpc    MacOSX
>     freebsd-4.7-i386      FreeBSD
>     irix-6.5-mips         IRIX
>     linux-glibc2.1.2-i386 Linux
>     solaris-2.8-sparc     Solaris
>     windows               Windows
> 
> Do we still need the glibc thingie on Linux ? If not what would replace
> it ? (the kernel version is not interesting).
> And what about Linux on alpha, powerpc ? Solaris on intel ?

I think glibc is no problem at all. However, who has a system with the
specified version of all tools and libraries? This is probably needed
for testing Blender on the minimum system requirements.

/me goes back to work on the building_blender.xml document.

Michel