Setting up a VMMaker image

 
Hi Andreas,

thanks for sharing this.

A few questions:

1. Is nuking the Win32VMMaker and loading the one from
   "platforms\win32\build\Win32VMMaker.st" still required
   as described on http://squeakvm.org/win32/compiling.html?

   Looks like the code is already integrated in VMMaker, so
   is this obsolete?

2. Do you still use the ToolChain with the "old" GCC 2.95-2 as provided
   on Squeakvm.org or is there something newer than
   http://squeakvm.org/win32/release/Squeak-Win32-Tools-1.2.zip
 
3. Is the quicktime plugin running on Win32? Last posting I've found:

   http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/squeak-list/3325977

   and there is also
 
http://www.fit.vutbr.cz/study/courses/OMP/public/software/sqcdrom2/Packages/Multimedia/QuickTime/QuickTime%20for%20Squeak.html but the changeset is gone

4. When I make the freetype plugin an internal plugin (to distribute
   VM with all plugins + image only) I get:

   ./obj/vm/FT2Plugin.lib(FT2Plugin.o.b): In function `initialiseModule':
   //C/squeak/vmmaker/vm/3115/testbuild/obj/FT2Plugin/../.././src/FT2Plug   in/FT2Plugin.c:419: undefined reference to `FT_Init_FreeType'
   
5. Are there any plans for having Alien Plugin for Win32 in the Win32
   SqueakVM distribution? What is the state here?

6. Any plans regarding fixing the "service" stuff (see my posting
   in "Win32 VM Service facility broken?")

Thanks
Torsten


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Torsten Bergmann wrote:
> 1. Is nuking the Win32VMMaker and loading the one from
>    "platforms\win32\build\Win32VMMaker.st" still required
>    as described on http://squeakvm.org/win32/compiling.html?
>
>    Looks like the code is already integrated in VMMaker, so
>    is this obsolete?

Correct. I'll update the page.

> 2. Do you still use the ToolChain with the "old" GCC 2.95-2 as provided
>    on Squeakvm.org or is there something newer than
>    http://squeakvm.org/win32/release/Squeak-Win32-Tools-1.2.zip

I'm still using the same version. However, I'll make an "inofficial"
comment that the main reason for using this version of gcc (performance)
has gone away with the JIT and we're looking at alternatives that
provide better debugging support.

> 3. Is the quicktime plugin running on Win32? Last posting I've found:
>
>    http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/squeak-list/3325977
>
>    and there is also
>  
> http://www.fit.vutbr.cz/study/courses/OMP/public/software/sqcdrom2/Packages/Multimedia/QuickTime/QuickTime%20for%20Squeak.html but the changeset is gone

The Quicktime plugin is currently unsupported. I don't know what it
takes to make it work. If you send me the necessary support code I'll
add it.

> 4. When I make the freetype plugin an internal plugin (to distribute
>    VM with all plugins + image only) I get:
>
>    ./obj/vm/FT2Plugin.lib(FT2Plugin.o.b): In function `initialiseModule':
>    //C/squeak/vmmaker/vm/3115/testbuild/obj/FT2Plugin/../.././src/FT2Plug   in/FT2Plugin.c:419: undefined reference to `FT_Init_FreeType'

I haven't tried to build it internally. I know it works if you build it
externally though.

> 5. Are there any plans for having Alien Plugin for Win32 in the Win32
>    SqueakVM distribution? What is the state here?

Same as before. Generally speaking, I don't build VMs from changesets
patching VMMaker (it's a very fragile way to come up with the same
result each time you need a build) so unless the required Alien patches
are integrated into VMMaker I won't spend any time on it.

> 6. Any plans regarding fixing the "service" stuff (see my posting
>    in "Win32 VM Service facility broken?")

No concrete plans right now but if you send code I'll use it ;-)

Cheers,
   - Andreas

 

On 2009-11-10, at 8:57 AM, Andreas Raab wrote:

>> 5. Are there any plans for having Alien Plugin for Win32 in the  
>> Win32    SqueakVM distribution? What is the state here?
>
> Same as before. Generally speaking, I don't build VMs from  
> changesets patching VMMaker (it's a very fragile way to come up with  
> the same result each time you need a build) so unless the required  
> Alien patches are integrated into VMMaker I won't spend any time on  
> it.

Having this I think would be good, or at least I think that is what  
the Pharo community wants.

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Brief update:

Torsten Bergmann wrote:
> 1. Is nuking the Win32VMMaker and loading the one from
>    "platforms\win32\build\Win32VMMaker.st" still required
>    as described on http://squeakvm.org/win32/compiling.html?

The web page has been fixed.

> 4. When I make the freetype plugin an internal plugin (to distribute
>    VM with all plugins + image only) I get:
>
>    ./obj/vm/FT2Plugin.lib(FT2Plugin.o.b): In function `initialiseModule':
>    //C/squeak/vmmaker/vm/3115/testbuild/obj/FT2Plugin/../.././src/FT2Plug   in/FT2Plugin.c:419: undefined reference to `FT_Init_FreeType'

This is a linker issue; freetype.a isn't included in the final VM link
which it needs if you want to make FT2Plugin internal. I'm not sure how
to deal with it in the long term, for now you can add the following line
to winbuild/Makefile (after the STDLIBS definition):

STDLIBS += ../platforms/win32/plugins/FT2Plugin/freetype.a

Cheers,
   - Andreas

2009/11/11 Andreas Raab <[hidden email]>:
Yeah.
The solution is to change the main makefile to include
'makefile.extras' (if it exists), which should be located in plugin
dirs,
so in such  'makefile.extras' one could write:

STDLIBS += ../platforms/win32/plugins/FT2Plugin/freetype.a

but i don't remember the syntax for file inclusion, and not sure that
make utility in Win32-Tools-1.2.zip  supports includes.

> Cheers,
>  - Andreas
>



--
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

 
Igor Stasenko wrote:
This exists and is actually already used by the external build of the
FT2Plugin (see platforms/win32/plugins/FT2Plugin/Makefile). The issue is
that a custom Makefile isn't included by default for the main VM build
(because it includes Makefile.plugin in return) so it's a bit of classic
recursive Makefile invocation / inclusion nightmare. Are there any
decent alternatives to make these days? (by "decent" I mean small and to
the point, not requiring megabytes of additional installation crap)

Cheers,
   - Andreas

2009/11/11 Andreas Raab <[hidden email]>: no no.. include but not call.

make anotherMakefile - is a separate call, in which you unable to see
& change any environment vars of caller.

include directive, however works similar to C/C++ #include directive -
puts the contents of included file in-place.

If you had a chance to see how FreeBSD using makefiles in their ports
collection, they use
include directive extensively. This is quite different from 'make
anotherMakefile ' calls.

See
http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/make/Include.html

> Cheers,
>  - Andreas
>



--
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

2009/11/11 Igor Stasenko <[hidden email]>: oh ... wait , i see FT2Plugin uses include already :)

well, if all custom makefiles were ment to be included into main
makefile at first place, then you won't need
to include the Makefile.plugin in
platforms/win32/plugins/FT2Plugin/Makefile, isnt?


Concerning alternatives, we having OSProcess... so it is possibly to
write and run a build process (or just generate a makefiles)
using VMMaker. I think this would be much better, simpler & leaner
comparing to hand-crafted makefiles with ugly & bogus syntax, shell
discrepancies and so on... :)

--
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

CONTENTS DELETED

 
On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 09:20:19AM +0200, Igor Stasenko wrote:
>
> Concerning alternatives, we having OSProcess... so it is possibly to
> write and run a build process (or just generate a makefiles)
> using VMMaker. I think this would be much better, simpler & leaner
> comparing to hand-crafted makefiles with ugly & bogus syntax, shell
> discrepancies and so on... :)
 
Funny you should mention it, I actually did this back in the time of
Squeak 2.8 or so, and I even had it integrated into the VMMaker user
interface so you could do a one-click build. See UnixProcess class>>makeVmIn:
for the remnants of that experiment.

To be honest, I'm not sure it's all that useful, given that I don't
even bother to use it myself any more. But it was kind of cool that it
worked ;-)

Also I suppose that I would need to re-motivate myself to get OSProcess
working properly on Win32 before it could be seriously considered for
this sort of thing.

Dave

 

On 11-Nov-09, at 6:44 PM, David T. Lewis wrote:

> Also I suppose that I would need to re-motivate myself to get  
> OSProcess
> working properly on Win32 before it could be seriously considered for
> this sort of thing.

Oh, please do. Squeak would be so much more powerful if we could rely  
on OSProcess in the base image.

Colin

 
2009/11/12 David T. Lewis <[hidden email]>:
I wasn't here at those days, but frankly, what could be better than
clean & beatiful smalltalk code?
Could makefiles expressions replicate the powers of smalltalk? :)
And so i wonder why it was abandoned. As i said, we could generate the
makefiles, and don't use OSProcess,
and even this is good step forward in avoiding some discrepancies
which we just discussed here , like unability to link the 3rd-party
library with VM without manually hacking the makefile.

> Dave
>
>



--
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

 
On Thursday 12 November 2009 08:14:54 am David T. Lewis wrote:
> To be honest, I'm not sure it's all that useful, given that I don't
> even bother to use it myself any more. But it was kind of cool that it
> worked ;-)
Please share your frontline experiences. I found OSProcess very useful as a
facade (shell) to query and access host facilities and services. Its
inadequate file and network i/o facilities may come in the way of creating stuff
like scripts but this gap is not formidable. It would be so nice to simply
probe a system and compile/load a plugin on the fly.

Many apps that run on multiple platforms (compilers, interpreters, desktop
managers like KDE, typesetters like TeXLive, firefox, openoffice.org,
audio/video/picture converters) are exposed only through command line services
and not over a network socket. OSProcess can assist in accessing their
services easily.

Subbu