[vbox-dev] FreeBSD VirtualBox patch

[Matt]

Hi Jason.

On 9/19/07, Jason A. Spiro <jasonspiro at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2007/9/19, Matt <datahead4 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ...
> > On my FreeBSD configure attempts, xalan and xerces are not found
> > properly without patching configure with /usr/local/include and
> > /usr/local/lib.  I would assume that things like libIDL, SDL and Qt
> > may also have that problem since they are in the /usr/local hierarchy
> > as well.
>
> Matt, I am just curious, what is the command line you typed to install
> Xalan and Xerces on your FreeBSD machine?  Olivier, what was the
> command line you typed?

Xalan and xerces are installed from the ports tree with origins of
textproc/xalan-c and textproc/xerces-c2 respectively.  Both were
compiled from source with no extra command line options set - just the
port defaults.  So, the command line for me was "make configure &&
make && make install".

>
> Matt, I also wonder why the configure script didn't work for you
> without patching it.  If it didn't work for you out of the box, there
> surely will be other people for whom it doesn't work either.
>

I think the configure script is working exactly the same for Olivier
and me - looks like his report for today came after Frank updated
subversion with the additional /usr/local include paths.  The
configure script straight from subversion fails at the same place for
both of us - when it goes to find to X headers and libraries.

> Dear mailing list:  Xalan / Xerces are confusing in that there are
> different version numbers and different versions available (for
> example, there are Java versions.)  I wonder if the docs could be made
> more clear and better explain exactly which Xalan and Xerces to use.
>
> Also:  Can VirtualBox build on FreeBSD 7-CURRENT?  Maybe someone could
> contribute a port for it.  Have any of you ever created FreeBSD port
> Makefiles before?  The Porters' Handbook is a good reference, and
> there are mailing lists and IRC that can help too.
>

I am able to build the same parts as Olivier is on my -CURRENT box,
however, I need to patch a few more things to get it all to work.  I
posted a snapshot of my patch set to this list yesterday, but it's
already out of date - the gentlemen at innotek are quickly adding some
of the patches posted by Olivier to subversion (thank you!).

As for being able to add this to the ports tree, one of the hurdles
we'll have to overcome is how to manage the reliance on kBuild.  I
currently have to build kBuild from source as described at
http://svn.netlabs.org/kbuild/wiki/Bootstrapping because the binaries
currently in the kBuild subversion repo are linked with an old version
of the gettext library "libintl.so".  Current version in FreeBSD ports
uses libintl.so.8; the version linked with kBuild uses libintl.so.6.
And last time I checked, kBuild wasn't able to be automatically
"installed" as part of its build process, so a separate port for
kBuild would probably have to manually created an install action.
This is by no means an insurmountable task, just something that will
need to be figured out.

I am familiar with the Porter's Handbook and have used it to create
some basic ports for myself, but nothing that has been worthy of
contribution back to the ports infrastructure.  I hope to be able to
contribute to creating a port for VirtualBox when it's ready.  A fast,
complete virtual machine emulator is the only thing that is missing
(in my opinion, of course) from the FreeBSD platform right now.

Matt