spkg-configure.m4 for linbox

[thierry-FreeBSD]

This ticket adds an spkg-configure.m4 for linbox, in order to use it from a system package if possible (see #27330).

Note for packagers: by default, linbox produces a buggy linbox.pc, and @LINBOXSAGE_LIBS@ must be removed from their linbox.pc.in (see #27205).

No more problem after that.

CC: @mkoeppe @dimpase @kiwifb @isuruf @embray @antonio-rojas @slel

Component: build: configure

Keywords: linbox, system packages

Author: Thierry Thomas, Michael Orlitzky, Samuel Lelièvre

Branch: bc7a6f8

Reviewer: Dima Pasechnik

Issue created by migration from https://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/29631

[thierry-FreeBSD]

To be put under build/pkgs/linbox

[mkoeppe]

comment:1

Attachment: spkg-configure.m4.gz

[mkoeppe]

Description changed:

--- 
+++ 
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
-This ticket adds an spkg-configure.m4 for linbox, in order to use it from a system package if possible (see #27330).
+This ticket adds an `spkg-configure.m4` for linbox, in order to use it from a system package if possible (see #27330).
 
-Note for packagers: by default, linbox produces a buggy linbox.pc, and `@`LINBOXSAGE_LIBS@ must be removed from their linbox.pc.in.
+Note for packagers: by default, linbox produces a buggy `linbox.pc`, and `@LINBOXSAGE_LIBS@` must be removed from their `linbox.pc.in` (see #27205).
 
 No more problem after that.

[orlitzky]

comment:2

We also need iml, ntl, flint, fplll, and mpfr in the DEPCHECK. Linbox can be built without some of those libraries with, for example, --without-ntl, so we may need to check for the parts that are actually used in sage. The sage-on-gentoo ebuild passes --without-fplll, so that dependency is probably superfluous, and maybe others are as well? In any case, to check which libraries linbox actually supports... after the PKG_CHECK_MODULES call, I guess we could look for things like -lntl in LINBOX_LIBS?

I don't see any distros that have a 1.6.x version other than 1.6.3, so it would probably be pointless to lower the version to 1.6.0. The real question is whether or not we can use the v1.5.2 that e.g. older Debian/Fedora ship.

[thierry-FreeBSD]

comment:3

pkgconf linbox --libs

sets LINBOX_LIB, and we could grep that the required libs are there?

[orlitzky]

comment:4

Hmm, looking at the spkg-install for linbox, we already pass --without-fplll:

# Disable fplll as version 5.x is not supported by linbox <= 1.5.0.
# This is harmless as no functionality using fplll is exposed in Sage.
# See trac ticket #21221.
LINBOX_CONFIGURE="--without-fplll $LINBOX_CONFIGURE"

So, the existing dependency on fplll (in build/pkgs/linbox/dependencies) is wrong. I'm going to build a system copy of linbox with all of the other stuff disabled and see what goes wrong. Maybe we don't care if the other stuff is enabled, either.

[orlitzky]

comment:5

For posterity, this also appears to be obsolete,

# Need to use 'bash' for configure, see
# https://github.com/sagemath/sage-prod/issues/23451
if [ -z "$CONFIG_SHELL" ]; then
    export CONFIG_SHELL=`command -v bash`
fi

as I've been compiling linbox-1.6.3 this whole time with /bin/sh -> /bin/dash.

[orlitzky]

comment:6

Even if you pass --without-foo for all of the optional linbox dependencies, flint still gets pulled in automagically, so it's going to be required either way. I'm doing a full sage build / ptestlong now with the rest (ntl, fplll, mpfr, iml) disabled to see if any of them are actually important.

[orlitzky]

Branch: u/mjo/ticket/29631

[orlitzky]

comment:7

Everything is fine if we disable ntl, iml, and mpfr in linbox, so I created a branch with those dependencies eliminated. That means that we only need to add "flint" to the DEPCHECK.

---

New commits:

72291a0	Trac #29631: don't force SHELL=bash when installing linbox.
787b5df	Trac #29631: drop fplll from linbox's dependencies.
e4a14c0	Trac #29631: disable additional unused features of the linbox SPKG.