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Self-hosting clang; building DragonFly with it too

clang, which many people look to as a gcc replacement, is now able to build itself.  (Thanks John Marino for the heads-up, some time ago)  It can also build world and kernel on DragonFly, going on the work of Sascha Wildner!

Using the pkgsrc package,  put

clang_CC=/usr/pkg/bin/clang

in /etc/compilers.conf and then set $CCVER to “clang” when building:

env WORLD_CCVER=clang make -DNO_GCC44 buildworld

I haven’t tried this, so any errors in description are mine, not Sascha’s – can someone verify? I don’t have a test system to run it on right now.

Edit: see Sascha’s comment for the definitive method.

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Obligatory iPad mention

The iPad is BSD-based, which is neat.  I like the notion of covering more BSD devices and products here on the Digest.

But: do you like even the vague concept of open source?  The iPad is expressly designed to limit your choices, especially with media consumption and the programs you run.  It’s sort of like owning a TV circa 1975 – you get what large media groups and the network (Apple) want you to see. I don’t want to come across as someone who’s complaining because it’s different – I’m complaining because it’s not different.

There’s other people arguing the same idea, with even more reasons.  This is one of the most specific.  Plus, there’s the natural progression…

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Summer of Code mentors wanted

(reproduced from my email to users@/kernel@)

The application period for Google Summer of Code 2010 starts in about a
week. We were able to enter in 2008 and 2009, so I’m optimistic that we
will get in for 2010 too.

Saying “I’m willing to mentor” doesn’t force you to commit yet; you don’t
have to work with a student on a project you don’t find interesting.
However, mentoring is a multi-week commitment to support a student who may
or may not have the best planning skills – please be ready to help.

I need to know soon how many potential mentors we have since we have to
ask for a given number of slots from Google as part of the application
process.  If you are interested in mentoring, speak up here or by email, please. If
there’s a particular project on the GSoC 2010 page that looks interesting,
put your name by it.

http://www.dragonflybsd.org/docs/developer/gsoc2010/

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(b)make install change in pkgsrc

Joerg Sonnenberger announced new behavior in pkgsrc: Performing “bmake install” in pkgsrc with a package that supports DESTDIR will build a binary package and then install from that package.  This means a package will be successfully build before the installation process is started, and I assume is to assist further work down the road.

Details: The old behavior was to build and install directly, which “bmake stage-install” can reproduce.  DESTDIR support means that the software can be installed as non-root.

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32 to 64-bit Hammer mirroring fixed

Michael Neumann has fixed the ability to stream Hammer data between 32 and 64 bit systems.  However, this is a change to 64-bit systems that requires them to match; make sure that you are not mixing 64-bit systems built before and after this commit on the 21st.

I can’t find the commit message in the mail archive, so I’ll quote it here:

Continue reading “32 to 64-bit Hammer mirroring fixed”