AIX Open Source

AIX Open Source

Share your experiences and connect with fellow developers to discover how to build and manage open source software for the AIX operating system

 View Only

  • 1.  expat-devel-2.2.9-2.ppc missing libexpat.la

    Posted Wed July 14, 2021 05:08 AM
    Hello,
    The package expat-devel-2.2.9-2.ppc is missing libexpat.la.
    The .la is needed if you build certain other open source tools.
    The same is true for libpng-devel-1.6.27-3.ppc.

    Is there a specific reason for that?

    Other packages do contain the necessary .la files:

    libfl.la libfreetype.la libgdbm.la libgmpxx.la libffi.la libfontconfig.la libgd.la libgmp.la liblzma.la


    Bye
      Rainer Tammer

    Note.: .la = libtool library file

    ------------------------------
    Rainer Tammer
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: expat-devel-2.2.9-2.ppc missing libexpat.la

    Posted Thu July 15, 2021 07:19 AM
    new aixtoolbox packages do not provide *.la files, this started last year or so, they are not needed anyway. just remove all *.la files from /opt/freeware/lib and /opt/freeware/lib64.

    ------------------------------
    I regret starting this entire conversation
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: expat-devel-2.2.9-2.ppc missing libexpat.la

    Posted Thu July 15, 2021 08:01 AM
    Hello,
    The problem is, that they _are_ needed by some older open source packages.
    Otherwise the build system does not work.

    Bye
    ?? Rainer Tammer



    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: expat-devel-2.2.9-2.ppc missing libexpat.la

    Posted Thu July 15, 2021 08:11 AM
    hm...ok, as said the situation is that *.la are not provided in new packages, maybe you need to build a separated environment with old packages for your ancient software.

    ------------------------------
    I regret starting this entire conversation
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: expat-devel-2.2.9-2.ppc missing libexpat.la

    Posted Thu July 15, 2021 08:48 AM
    Hello,
    The .la files are (still9 used by libtool (even 2.4.6).

    Many open source packages (which are often not available in the AIX Toolbox or which are not available in a 64 and a 32 bit version)
    depend on these files during configuration/build. It is unnecessary work to fix these problems. Many current AIX Toolbox packages do still provide the .la files.

    So why were the libtool library files removed from the AIX Toolbox packages?
    I did not find a documented reason for that.

    Bye
      Rainer

    P.S.: I did some wonk on libtool for AIX (see ChangeLog in libtool-2.4.6).

    ------------------------------
    Rainer Tammer
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: expat-devel-2.2.9-2.ppc missing libexpat.la

    Posted Thu July 15, 2021 10:29 AM

    AIX Toolbox packages were shipping the .la files initially. Sometime back , we decided not to ship the .la files in align with other distros. So the packages which are recently updated ( last 2 years) probably won't be having the .la files but the other packages will still be having .la files . I understand this breaks some package builds because some .la files will be still referring other .la files which are no longer shipped. 
    In that case , as mentioned by @C- -T one has to clean all the .la files from /opt/freeware/lib & /opt/freeware/lib64. 
    As we update each packages , eventually AIX Toolbox will be free of these .la files. But right now , it is a problem and we can't really update all the packages because of this single problem because of the huge effort involved.

    ​

    ------------------------------
    Ayappan P
    ------------------------------

    Original Message