Anders F Björklund wrote:
> Joakim Karlsson wrote:
> 
>> Well.. I was asking about GDC and not DMD, but thanks anyway.
>> I guess it will take some time before I bother, then.
> 
> Were you looking for a "bundle" with GCC / G++, or just the
> frontend for D ? (i.e. the gdc, gdmd and cc1d/libgphobos.a)
> 
> Main difference is whether we're talking 3 or 30 MB package...
> 
> 
> I don't use Debian/Ubuntu myself, but have done packages for
> RedHat/Fedora, Gentoo and for Mac OS X. (specs posted earlier)
> 
> To make a Debian package, a DEB maintainer needs to volunteer.
> 
> --anders
I can't read his mind, but when I'm thinking about it, I don't want to yield a un-installation of Gnat or Objective-C or C++...which were installed via debs.  I've thought about installing gdc several times, but every time it's felt too dangerous.  It's felt that *I* would need to create a new OS disk partition, boot into it, and experiment until I was certain that I could install gdc without killing the rest of the system.  (I know that this reveals my lack of skills...but I doubt that I am alone in this trepidation.)

Charles Hixson wrote:

> I can't read his mind, but when I'm thinking about it, I don't want to yield a un-installation of Gnat or Objective-C or C++...which were installed via debs.  I've thought about installing gdc several times, but every time it's felt too dangerous.  It's felt that *I* would need to create a new OS disk partition, boot into it, and experiment until I was certain that I could install gdc without killing the rest of the system.  (I know that this reveals my lack of skills...but I doubt that I am alone in this trepidation.)

I've made two RPM packages/distributions, one "gdc" and one "opt-gdc".

The first installs in /usr, and might be considered "dangerous"...
Although it should only feature files that are new for GDC itself:
/usr/bin/gdc
/usr/libexec/gcc/i586-redhat-linux/4.0.2/cc1d
/usr/include/d/
/usr/lib/libgphobos.a
(...etc...)
Downside is that to function, it depends on the system GCC version.

The other installs in /opt/gdc, and is thus completely "harmless".
Downside is that you need to set the $PATH, and it uses a new GCC.
But it should be possible to do a distro-agnostic package of this ?
(it'll still have some dependencies like glibc etc, but a lot fewer)
It's still prettty small, even with the C++ crud that "recls" needs.


Once the binary RPMS are posted (later), it should be possible to
convert them to DEB format too - using the "alien" tool ? (AFAIK)

But before it becomes a "real" Debian package, it needs a maintainer.
As per http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ (definitely *not* me)

--anders


PS. Never hurts to be cautious, but --prefix=/opt/gdc should be enough,
    as in: ./configure --prefix=/opt/gdc --enable-languages=d \
                       && make && sudo make install
    I don't really think you need a new partition just for testing GDC.