Well, until recently GNU make was a happy _non_-user of config.guess
:). However, in order to support LFS I needed to add AC_CANONICAL_HOST
to configure.in.
It seems that everyone puts this right up front, before any other
checking, so I did too.
But, I just got a bug report from someone on a RedHat 6.0 (Intel)
system, saying configure told them...
checking host system type... configure: error: can not guess host type; you must
specify one
Can't guess a RedHat 6.0 Linux on Intel? I'd be _inundated_ if this
were generally true.
After much mailing back and forth, it appears that... he didn't install
a C compiler when he installed his system! The Linux section needs to
compile some stuff to figure out whether you're using an a.out or ELF
system, or whatever. Some other tests also do compiling to check this.
But _nowhere_ in config.guess does it ever check to see if the C
compiler it "guesses" actually works. Also, none of the normal "looking
for a working C compiler" processing in AC_PROG_CC is done by
config.guess, which seems like it could potentially lead to a lot of
bugs.
Before I had config.guess, the configure script would look for the C
compiler and fail with a relatively sane message, like "hey buddy, how
can I compile anything without a compiler? Duh!", or something to that
effect :)
Now, if there's no compiler, it says "cannot guess host type".
Seems like a step backwards to me...
Should I move AC_CANONICAL_HOST to _after_ my test for AC_PROG_CC, and
figure out how to invoke config.guess in such a way as to use the
compiler it finds, or what? Am I using a too-old config.guess; has this
been fixed in later versions?
--
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Paul D. Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Network Management Development
"Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
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These are my opinions---Nortel Networks takes no responsibility for them.
