Building Pidgin (2.6.3) [Was: Re: pidgin can not connect to yahoo ?]

[Curt]

Hey!  This is my first post here.  So . . .

Hello.  My name is Curt.  (Hello, Curt.)  Ah, it's AA all over again.

Anyway, back to business.

I used Tiny Core's Appbrowser to install Pidgin 2.5.5.  But it doesn't connect to Yahoo.  Apparently from what I read Yahoo has changed their servers.  The temporary fix was to change my page server settings in Pidgin, but that doesn't work.  Probably Yahoo finished changing all of their servers to the new format/protocol.  The real fix, the better fix, and maybe now the only fix, is to upgrade to a newer pidgin.

So who wants to hold my hand and walk me through the process?

I downloaded the source code for Pidgin 2.6.3, and I used Tiny Core's Appbrowser to install GCC 4.2.2.  I extracted Pidgin, but when I ./configure I get "configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables" "See config.log for more details."  Config.log is pretty big, but this looked like it might be significant:

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gcc: '-V' option must have argument
configure:3549: $? = 1
configure:3572: checking for C compiler default output file name
configure:3594: gcc    conftest.c  >&5
gcc: error trying to exec 'as': execvp: No such file or directory
configure:3598: $? = 1
configure:3636: result:
configure: failed program was:
| /* confdefs.h.  */
So what should I do now?  Who wants to help the new guy who really doesn't yet know what he's doing?
Curt

[^thehatsrule^]

My guess is that only some gcc was installed.  You should use the tc toolchain suite: see "compiletc"

(If this convo takes longer, it may be split)

And welcome.

[Curt]

Thanks!  That helped.

I went to Appbrowser and installed compiletc.  That apparently installed a few other apps.  Oh, yeah, I clicked on Files in the Appbrowser and I see the list.  That looks like some important stuff, like binutils and some gcc stuff.  That looks important.

So I tried ./configure again, and it went a lot further this time.  Now it says "configure: error: The intltool scripts were not found.  Please install intltool."  If I am lucky, that is in the Appbrowser.  Let's have a look.  There it is.  Installed it.  Trying again . . .

Now it says "configure: error: GNU gettext tools not found; required for intltool."  So I go to Appbrowser again, find gettext, install it, and compile again.

Now it stops with "configure: error: perl not found."  Boy, does everyone do things this way?  Back to Appbrowser again.  Found perl.  Installed it.  ./configure . . .

"checking for XML::Parser... configure: error: XML::Parser perl module is required for intltool"

Back to Appbrowser.  Found perl_xml_parser.tcz.  Installed it.  Now it says I need GLIB.  Or if I have it installed I might need pkg-config.  How long will this go on?  And will it end successfully?  Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion in part 2!

[Curt]

There are quite a few packages in Appbrowser that have "glib" in them.  So I looked back at my terminal window to re-read it to see if it will offer some direction.  My error message said:
checking for GLIB... no
no
configure: error:

You must have Glib 2.4.0 or newer development headers installed to build.

If you have these installed already you may need to install pkg-config so I can find them.

I think the Appbrowser package I need is glib2-dev.tcz, but it says it is version 2.22.1, and I need version 2.4.0 or newer.  Several of the glib packages say version 2.9.

Dang Firefox keeps crashing.  What the heck is up with that?  I'll continue this in part 3.  Stay tuned!

[Juanito]

Did you read the wiki section on creating extensions - specifically this bit:

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$ export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/lib/pkgconfig
Once you've compiled on tc a few times, you'll get to recognise that when something asks for intltool, you might has well load perl_xml_parser and the whole lot - in fact what I've done locally is to add a dep file for intltool that loads perl5, gettext, expat2 and perl_xml_parser

[Juanito]

checking for GLIB... no
no
configure: error:

You must have Glib 2.4.0 or newer development headers installed to build.

If you have these installed already you may need to install pkg-config so I can find them.

I think the Appbrowser package I need is glib2-dev.tcz, but it says it is version 2.22.1, and I need version 2.4.0 or newer.  Several of the glib packages say version 2.9.

Be careful not to mix glib and glibc - what you need is glib and glib-2.22.1 will be backwards compatible with the need for glib-2.4

If you have pkg-config installed (it will be installed if you installed compiletc) and the pkg-config path set, then all you need to do is load the glib2 and glib2-dev extensions.

I'll bet that the next thing requested is gtk2, so you could save some time by installing the gtk2-devs extension, which will install everything required in one fell swoop 

[^thehatsrule^]

Now it stops with "configure: error: perl not found."  Boy, does everyone do things this way?  Back to Appbrowser again.  Found perl.  Installed it.  ./configure . . .

There may be a list of dependencies, or there may be a guide somewhere.  Or ask the user who built the current extension.

Dang Firefox keeps crashing.

Could be running out of memory, or buggy plugins...?

[Curt]

Dang it!  Dang it!  Dang it!

Firefox kept crashing on me.  I typed this post several times and never got the chance to post it.  So I tried installing Opera from the Appbrowser, but it would disappear, too.  No warning, just disappears, along with everything I typed.  So I booted from the CD with base applications only, installed Opera, and started going through my compiling process, installing apps as needed.  Before I could finish, Opera disappeared on me.  Boy is this ever frustrating!

I have 384MB of RAM.  That is nothing spectacular, but it should be fine for Tiny Core, even with a bunch of extensions.  My vote says that something in that list of apps I installed is the source of my troubles.  Some of those were tczl as I recall, so they are not guaranteed to be stable anyway.

So with all of this frustration I am ready to give up.  I am going to try SliTaz, or maybe DSL or Puppy Linux, and see if I can compile in one of those systems.  Or maybe I'll come running back to Tiny Core again.  I really like the concept of Tiny Core, where I start with almost nothing and build MY system the way I want MY system to be.  That's coolio.

And until I tried compiling, I really liked Tiny Core Linux.  I am very much on board with the philosophy to have a small system that runs almost completely in RAM.  You've got a good idea here, and from the number of users, you have a good distribution with a loyal following.  I am just feeling frustrated at the moment and so I am going to take a break from Tiny Core.  Wish me luck!
Curt

[^thehatsrule^]

Hm, that does sound odd.  However, pidgin's compiling requirements could be high.

If you don't mind, could you paste what TC version and mode you are using, along with a list of extensions?  (i.e. with cd $(cat /etc/.tce_dir) && ls -1)

[Curt]

Yes, I will get that list for you, but give me some time to walk through it again.  I am glad to help.

I used Tiny Core version 2.5.  I had the problem when I booted from the LiveCD and when I booted from the hard drive.  As for which mode I was in when I booted from the hard drive, I am not certain.  I wondered about that myself when I installed it.  I know that there are the four modes, but I am not sure which one I have.  I followed the installation instructions from http://tinycorelinux.com/install.html, so hopefully you know which mode I used.

I have a couple of busy days ahead of me, but I will get that list for you.
Curt

[Jason W]

With 384mb ram, a bunch of extensions loaded, and Firefox disappearing on you during compiling, you were certainly the victim of the Linux OOM (out of memory) killer.  Firefox is one of the first apps it strikes, I have had it kill Firefox during a major compile.

Check the output of dmesg and it will tell you when it killed Firefox or any other app.

[Juanito]

I have 384MB of RAM.  That is nothing spectacular, but it should be fine for Tiny Core, even with a bunch of extensions.  My vote says that something in that list of apps I installed is the source of my troubles.  Some of those were tczl as I recall, so they are not guaranteed to be stable anyway.

What makes you think that tczl extensions might be a problem? These should work just as well as any other extensions and, when mounted as opposed to being installed to ram, will not use much ram.

[Juanito]

After loading the following extensions:

nss-nspr, nss-nspr-devs, gtk2, gtk2-devs, Xorg-7.4-dev, Xlibs_support, pango, pango-devs, graphics-libs-1, graphics-libs-1-devs, expat2, expat2-devs, libxml2, glib2, glib2-dev, cairo, cairo-devs, libxml2-devs, pixman, pixman-devs, fontconfig, fontconfig-devs, atk, atk-devs, perl5, intltool-0.40.5, gettext-0.17 and perl_xml_parser

pidgin-2.6.3 compiled like this:

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$ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local --disable-startup-notification --disable-gtkspell --disable-gstreamer
--disable-vv --disable-idn --disable-meanwhile --disable-avahi --disable-dbus --disable-tcl --disable-perl

$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/include/nspr/* /usr/local/include
$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/include/nss/* /usr/local/include

$ make
$ sudo make install-strip ..without errors

[combo3]

Did you read the wiki section on creating extensions - specifically this bit:

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$ export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/lib/pkgconfig

One other 'gotcha' worth mentioning is that the environment variable only gets set in the terminal from which you issue the export command.

To avoid this problem, create a text file called compile_env in your home folder with the following lines:

export CFLAGS="-march=i486 -mtune=i686 -Os -pipe"
export CXXFLAGS="-march=i486 -mtune=i686 -Os -pipe -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti"
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/lib/pkgconfig

Then source it at boot by adding the following line to /home/tc/.ashrc

. compile_env

^ note the dot