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Free Pascal and Lazarus packages on Debian
dbannon:
Linux - (eg) Debian Bullseye
On the topic of fppgk, the IDE has a nice tool that offers to write new fppkg.cfg files (2?). But its unusable if you are using a Distro Packaged FPC because the ($%#!) Distro Package Maintainers insist in restructuring the FP install. The tool in the Lazarus IDE appears to look for particular FP directory structures that do exist if you do a SourceForge deb install or an install from a Tarball but the distros change all that and put things where they think is a good idea.
Seems we have several options -
1) Go back to Debian and say that you have packaged FPC wrongly. Bullseye is in late freeze, quite certain they will not change it at this late stage.
2) Make the fppkg aware of the "alternative" structure ?
3) We just tell people "please don't use the distro packages of FPC, ever". This makes sense in an number of other aspects too, the directory changes make building cross compilers difficult, and they don't always bundle everything in one install (ie, choose GTK or QT5). The standard FPC Bullseye install right now leaves out the RTL and does not depend on gdb. Sigh ...
Davo
valdir.marcos:
--- Quote from: dbannon on July 14, 2021, 03:14:26 am ---Linux - (eg) Debian Bullseye
On the topic of fppgk, the IDE has a nice tool that offers to write new fppkg.cfg files (2?). But its unusable if you are using a Distro Packaged FPC because the ($%#!) Distro Package Maintainers insist in restructuring the FP install. The tool in the Lazarus IDE appears to look for particular FP directory structures that do exist if you do a SourceForge deb install or an install from a Tarball but the distros change all that and put things where they think is a good idea.
Seems we have several options -
1) Go back to Debian and say that you have packaged FPC wrongly. Bullseye is in late freeze, quite certain they will not change it at this late stage.
2) Make the fppkg aware of the "alternative" structure ?
3) We just tell people "please don't use the distro packages of FPC, ever". This makes sense in an number of other aspects too, the directory changes make building cross compilers difficult, and they don't always bundle everything in one install (ie, choose GTK or QT5). The standard FPC Bullseye install right now leaves out the RTL and does not depend on gdb. Sigh ...
Davo
--- End quote ---
Dear Davo,
As you already know: being a Debian maintainer is a time consuming hard voluntary task done by volunteers that usually are not programmers.
Free Pascal and Lazarus directory structure and tools are neither intuitive nor easy to understand even for experienced professional programmers that are not core developers of Free Pascal and/or Lazarus.
Please, consider that there are core developers that contribute to only Free Pascal and others to only Lazarus and they rarely contribute to both because it's hard and time consuming to learn all that.
Also consider that Debian has its own logic to be built and to work in the same way as Free Pascal and Lazarus do.
And finally, consider that if it would be easy to build a compiler or an IDE, we would have thousands of core developers contributing to Free Pascal and/or Lazarus.
So, please, be more kind and respectful to Debian volunteers that had to learn how Debian, Free Pascal and Lazarus work internally to freely offer them to a community that demands them and usually doesn't have the ability to put all the pieces together.
That said, you can easily reach all the noble people involved in maintaining Debian packages related to Free Pascal and Lazarus to gracefully help them out:
Pascal Packaging Team, Abou Al Montacir, Paul Gevers, Peter Michael Green
https://packages.qa.debian.org/f/fpc.html
https://packages.qa.debian.org/l/lazarus.html
dbannon:
--- Quote from: valdir.marcos on July 15, 2021, 09:57:01 am ---
--- Quote from: dbannon on July 14, 2021, 03:14:26 am ---......But its unusable if you are using a Distro Packaged FPC because the ($%#!) Distro Package Maintainers insist in restructuring the FP install.
......
--- End quote ---
....
So, please, be more kind and respectful to Debian voluntiers that had to learn how Debian, Free Pascal and Lazarus work internally to freely offer them to a community that demands them and usually doesn't have the ability to put all the pieces toghether.
....
--- End quote ---
Valdir, I accept you gentle smack on the hand and agree that overall, the Debian project is both very valuable and incredibly big ! So, I withdraw totally my silly ($%#!). But, while what you say is true but it does not alter the situation. The way that FPC and Lazarus are packaged in Debian does make an introduction to FPC/Lazarus very hard for new comers.
Because the Debian version conflicts with the advice we give those new comers in the Forum and Wiki, we need to decide, collectively how to minimize the confusion. And thats why I wrote the initial post. Its too late to get the FPC/Lazarus debs changed, even if they were willing to change their model. So, we need to either change Lazarus to accommodate the Debian model or agree that we will tell every new comer that they should not use the Debian packages, ever. Both are a big call !
Incidentally, I maintain a Lazarus app in Debian and have had lots of very willing help from the people there.
Davo
valdir.marcos:
--- Quote from: dbannon on July 16, 2021, 06:47:36 am ---
--- Quote from: valdir.marcos on July 15, 2021, 09:57:01 am ---
--- Quote from: dbannon on July 14, 2021, 03:14:26 am ---......But its unusable if you are using a Distro Packaged FPC because the ($%#!) Distro Package Maintainers insist in restructuring the FP install.
......
--- End quote ---
....
So, please, be more kind and respectful to Debian volunteers that had to learn how Debian, Free Pascal and Lazarus work internally to freely offer them to a community that demands them and usually doesn't have the ability to put all the pieces together.
....
--- End quote ---
Valdir, I accept you gentle smack on the hand and agree that overall, the Debian project is both very valuable and incredibly big ! So, I withdraw totally my silly ($%#!). But, while what you say is true but it does not alter the situation. The way that FPC and Lazarus are packaged in Debian does make an introduction to FPC/Lazarus very hard for new comers.
Because the Debian version conflicts with the advice we give those new comers in the Forum and Wiki, we need to decide, collectively how to minimize the confusion. And thats why I wrote the initial post. Its too late to get the FPC/Lazarus debs changed, even if they were willing to change their model. So, we need to either change Lazarus to accommodate the Debian model or agree that we will tell every new comer that they should not use the Debian packages, ever. Both are a big call !
Incidentally, I maintain a Lazarus app in Debian and have had lots of very willing help from the people there.
Davo
--- End quote ---
Davo, thanks for understanding.
I am striving to offer a new packaging proposal for Free Pascal and Lazarus in Debian.
I am looking for a balance between the Free Pascal and Debian philosophies as it is not possible to fully please both.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/lazarus/files/Lazarus%20Linux%20amd64%20DEB/
https://packages.qa.debian.org/f/fpc.html
https://packages.qa.debian.org/l/lazarus.html
https://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=contents&keywords=fpc&mode=path&suite=stable&arch=any
https://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=contents&keywords=pascal&mode=path&suite=stable&arch=any
There are many challenges to be solved to build this great Lego.
My current idea is to start with a basic stable package for Free Pascal, for example 3.4.0 or 3.2.2 or 3.0.4, which could only be updated via apt-get. This package would allow you to compile other things that would come later.
A dev package would come next for Free Pascal Fixes and another dev package for Trunk with the possibility to change the source code and recompile it using the stable package. It could even be uninstalled and reinstalled to start over from scratch. This would allow core developers to work easily with Debian.
Then there would be more packages related to Free Pascal, like source code or text editor, and not exactly related to Lazarus.
The SVN, GIT, GDB and FPDebug etc packages would be separated and optional.
Lazarus would be split into a group of packages without the limited [in the sense of impossibility of recompiling itself] Free Pascal built-in in the current Lazarus model offering the possibility of adding easily more versions of Free Pascal via apt-get.
It's a lot of work for the next years.
--- Quote from: dbannon on July 16, 2021, 06:47:36 am ---Because the Debian version conflicts with the advice we give those new comers in the Forum and Wiki, we need to decide, collectively how to minimize the confusion.
And thats why I wrote the initial post. Its too late to get the FPC/Lazarus debs changed, even if they were willing to change their model.
So, we need to either change Lazarus to accommodate the Debian model or agree that we will tell every new comer that they should not use the Debian packages, ever.
Both are a big call !
--- End quote ---
First, we need to separate the vast majority programmers that uses Free Pascal and Lazarus to only produce software and the few people that are core developers building Free Pascal, Lazarus, libraries or components.
Those two audiences have different needs.
Even though I don't see Free Pascal and Lazarus models [directory tree and binaries] as intuitive, I don't believe they will ever change. So, obviously, the Debian packages would difficultly comply with that.
Similar to that, Debian people - me included - have their own ecosystem. They have learned and are used to the way things work on Debian and expect that behavior.
So, my idea is to build something between those two worlds, starting from prioritizing the bigger audience.
One important future feature is that Lazarus needs to build itself smoothly in Debian and this is currently over complicated.
dbannon:
OK Valdir, I think we agree on a lot of things.
I, personally use a compiler from tarball and Lazarus from source but recognise that lots of user do need to start out on a Distro versions. I believe that being able to build Lazarus from source should should be practicable when using the distro FPC. It used to be easy but not any more.
I would be very happy to work with you in achieving that if you think that would useful.
Another issue is cross compilers, again, changes made to (Debian) Distro version of FPC prevent making a cross compiler, at least in the way we are familiar with. I am currently rewriting the Wiki page on that subject after helping a person who followed the old instructions but started out with Distro FPC, then got lost in an over edit page !
I suspect cross compiling is a bridge too far away however, if we can just get Lazarus easy build-able, it would be a win.
Anyway, we are way, way, off topic in this thread. Happy to continue on a new thread if you desire.
Davo
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