dCore-stretch build-essential and xorg-vesa

[nitram]

Re-imported base SCEs after ~2 weeks, lots of updates, thankfully successful re-boot, should get more stable now. Less graphic support for my old chip compared to Jessie, to be expected, will live with it or revert to Jessie. Tried to compile Intel driver using build-essential but ./configure wouldn't complete, indicated no valid compiler. I suspect this is an old hardware issue losing support, similar to now fixed gcc in TC7, but you may want to check on newer hardware to confirm build-essential is functional. i don't have another dCore-stretch install for testing.

Tried xorg-vesa with poor outcome, will stick with xorg-intel. However, trying to  startx  with vesa driver from  xorg-vesa resulted in a fail with missing  liblz4-1  message. Once loaded then startx worked. Just wanted to report, not sure if Debian will eventually fix this or whether it should be added as a dependency. Thanks.

[Jason W]

Thanks for the report.  I need to visit dCore-stretch as far as it's startup scripts needed to support its toolchain.  That is likely the issue.  Will do that shortly.   

[Jason W]

I am compiling the 4.2.9 kernel on my dCore-stretch install with no issue, apparently the needed startup scripts are already in place and work with the files in dCore-stretch.

I am curious as to what went wrong, if you pm me a link to the source you are trying to build I would like to test compile it.

[nitram]

Thanks for reply. Don't think it matters what i compile, in this case:
https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads
xf86-video-intel - 2.99.917

Here's ./configure:

Code: [Select]

tc@box:/tmp/trashbin/xf86-video-intel-2.99.917$ ./configure
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking whether make supports nested variables... yes
checking for style of include used by make... GNU
checking for gcc... gcc
checking whether the C compiler works... no
configure: error: in `/tmp/trashbin/xf86-video-intel-2.99.917':
configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details

Same hardware compiles fine in TC7 and dCore-jessie. For testing copied dCore-jessie's  build-essential.sce  to dCore-stretch and that worked fine too.

Not sure, but think it's an SSE only processor issue. Juanito fixed it in TC7:
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,20404.msg127216.html?PHPSESSID=QqTQtZE3aNabQBL98u4Nc2#msg127216

Hopefully by this weekend will install dCore-stretch on an SSE2 system and re-test.

Does gcc come from dCore or Debian (ie. something dCore can re-configure or stuck with it)?

Following up from OP, xorg-vesa resulted in a fail with missing liblz4-1, thanks.

[nitram]

Follow-up, installed dCore-stretch on slightly newer hardware, build-essential and gcc work fine on this SSE2 system. Not sure if dCore can fix or reached end of the road for old hardware compiling with Debian. Thankfully dCore requires little, if any compiling. Also xorg-nv wouldn't  startx  without first importing  liblz4-1  , maybe this should be added as a dependency to all xorg-* SCEs, maybe already included in xorg-all. Thanks.

[Jason W]

Ok, good to hear on the compiling working now.

Of course, what is considered old hardware is getting newer all the time.  And we are basically at the mercy of what Debian/Ubuntu offers in terms of it's toolchain and it's abilities. 

[nitram]

Found a simple solution, just wanted to post if anyone else is running modern dCore-* with non-SSE2 hardware. In dCore-stretch, build-essential uses gcc 6, but gcc 5 is also available in the repository. As build-essential is essential this should be imported. Then also import gcc-5. As two gcc versions will be loaded, the easiest method to specify preference:

In case you want a quicker (but still very clean) way of achieving it for a personal purpose (for instance if you want to build a specific project having some strong requirements concerning the version of the compiler), just follow the following steps:
type echo $PATH and look for a personal directory having a very high priority (in my case, I have ~/.local/bin);
add the symbolic links in this directory:

For instance:

ln -s /usr/bin/gcc-WHATEVER ~/.local/bin/gcc
ln -s /usr/bin/g++-WHATEVER ~/.local/bin/g++

Of course, this will work for a single user (it isn't a system wide solution), but on the other hand I don't like to change too many things in my installation.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7832892/how-to-change-the-default-gcc-compiler-in-ubuntu

Tested well with successful ./configure of software noted above, thanks.

[Jason W]

Thanks for this info, I was not aware of the usage of the different versions of GCC available. 

[Jason W]

gcc-5 added to the deps of build-essential.

[nitram]

Merry Christmas or Festivus, peace to all.
Thanks for adding the dependency, didn't think to ask.
Maybe  g++-5  should also be included, otherwise incomplete set.

[Jason W]

g++-5 added to deps of build-essential.