Hi Guy,
2013/10/9 Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
> On Oct 9, 2013, at 3:21 AM, Bálint Réczey <balint@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Building Wireshark already needs way more tools than just make and a C compiler.
>
> Perhaps we should fix that, so that the release tarball includes all generated source. I'd prefer not to require Flex, yacc/Bison, Perl, or Python, ideally.
>From packaging POV not having generated sources is better, since the
packagers needs to be sure that the generated files can be
re-generated.
In Debian, the policy dictates removing all the generated files from
the source before generating packages, for example.
I think nowadays almost no one builds Wireshark for their own (apart
from Developers) and those who do can easily
install the tools for it.
Since most of our users use packages I think making packaging easier
(i.e. dropping generated files), would be a reasonable way to go.
>
>> I also can't name any platform we would like to support but where
>> CMake is not available easily (like apt-get/yum/etc. install cmake).
>
>
> http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hppd/cgi-bin/search?term=CMake&Search=Search
>
> although
>
> http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hppd/cgi-bin/search?term=Qt&Search=Search
>
> so maybe they need to add a more modern version of Qt (which may require CMake). cmake.org does have 2.6.4 binaries for HP-UX:
>
> http://www.cmake.org/cmake/resources/software.html
>
> so hopefully that will be good enough.
According to our CMakeList.txt it will be:
...
project(Wireshark C CXX)
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.6)
set(CMAKE_BACKWARDS_COMPATIBILITY 2.6)
...
>
> The HP-UX Porting and Archive Centre does have binaries of Wireshark; whether they'll stop doing so for 1.12 is another matter - hopefully, they won't.
>
> (I consider *all* currently-developed UN*Xes as platforms we should at least support to the extent of having third parties be able to package it.
This is my point, too.
I think our CMake build system is more future-proof and is easier to
maintain than the autotools-based one.
> The only platforms I see us supporting *directly* are Windows and OS X, because I suspect only a minority of potential users of Wireshark would want to be forced to add on some Linux/BSD-style packaging system just to get Wireshark. Solaris, at least as of Solaris 11, has a Shiny New Packaging System built in, and has Wireshark in that packaging system; HP-UX has the Porting and Archive Centre, and they offer Wireshark and hopefully will continue to do so; AIX, there's The Written Word's packages.)
I don't work with the mentioned systems, but I think the preferred way
of installing programs is through packages and not compiling manually
from source.
Cheers,
Balint
