nimforum mirror - Trouble Porting to FreeBSD

nealie (orginal) [2023-08-04T11:37:05+02:00] view original

I'm working on the FreeBSD port of nim. Everything build OK and I've managed to get it installed, but the installed compiler seems to have problems.

I'm having trouble as modules in the standard library that import other standard library modules, but without a std/ prefix don't seem to work (they aren't found). Is this expected or is there some configuration that I've missed? I assume that it's not really expected as otherwise the standard library wouldn't be litterred with such references.

For an evolution, there have ben a surprising number of things I've had to fix as all the git clones in koch are just not allewd by the FreeBSD ports system and more linux assumptions have slipped in with the handling of the directory structure.

Araq (orginal) [2023-08-04T11:46:23+02:00] view original

I use Nim on a FreeBSD variant all the time and things just work. However, I simply set my PATH to $nim/bin and don't deal with the /usr/bin stuff.

grd (orginal) [2023-08-04T13:21:02+02:00] view original

I guess helloSystem?

Araq (orginal) [2023-08-04T13:52:27+02:00] view original

Thank you for your contribution to the discussion.

nealie (orginal) [2023-08-04T14:31:09+02:00] view original

Alas it's not that simple as to make the port I have to conform the the porting rules, that nim breaks unfortunately. This hasn't been a problem for some time as the port has been in good shape and has merely needed updating, but with the move to 2.0.0, things seem to have changed a bit more.

I've managed to weed out all the git clones (naughty!) and I thought that I had managed to get everything working using a more standard directory structure again, but I have the problem with std libraries not being imported unless prefixed with std/. This probably means I have some path set wrongly somewhere in the configuration, or I haven't managed to modify some path search to use the required directory structure.

I suppose one option would be to abandon the standard directory structure and use a /usr/local/nim directory, which would mean fewer changed to the original code. This is what a very few ports, such as lvm, do, but I think I will need a good reason to justify this before it will be committed, and it will require users to faff about with their path as well. Normally after a pkg/port is installed, things just work. This would no longer be so.

Araq (orginal) [2023-08-04T14:44:06+02:00] view original

This probably means I have some path set wrongly somewhere in the configuration, or I haven't managed to modify some path search to use the required directory structure.

Most probably, yes.

ingo (orginal) [2023-08-04T14:51:03+02:00] view original

@nealie Thank you for working on this, much appreciated.

thindil (orginal) [2023-08-04T17:50:23+02:00] view original

My observation related to the FreeBSD port of Nim.

Several months ago, I need to play with the development version of Nim. First I tried to install it in FreeBSD way, by upgrading the existing port. It didn't build. So I built Nim manually, with the standard ./build_all.sh command. It worked as expected. Then I manually moved freshly build version of Nim to proper places in /usr/local tree. And everything was working out-of-box without any patches. So, the problem can be withing the port recipe:

Some of the patches which are applied by the port remember times, when the language was called Nimrod, not Nim. ;) They may interfere with some paths inside the compiler.

Build instructions are a bit complicated, and different from commands from ./build_all.sh script. Plus, koch has removed many of the things from itself.

As far I remember, FreeBSD allows to download things during build a port process. Don't take my word, but I think I saw a couple of ports which were downloading additional things during compilation. By default, poudiere has disabled networking during build ports, but you can enable it in the poudiere's configuration file.

Personally, I would take the opportunity and modernize or rewrite the port to check the new build system. I can't promise anything, but I will try to look at it in the next week. Maybe the option with separated directory won't be needed. ;)

thindil (orginal) [2023-08-05T19:12:54+02:00] view original

Just a small update after some tests, more like note for myself. ;)

The whole process of installing Nim on FreeBSD looks that (without downloading, decompressing, etc.):

Run ./build_all.sh

Copy proper binaries to /usr/local/bin

Copy lib directory to /usr/local/lib/nim/, so the full path will be /usr/local/lib/nim/lib

Copy config directory to /usr/local/lib/nim/, so the full path will be /usr/local/lib/nim/config

Enjoy. Works as expected, I tested it with my small project which depends on the compiler package. All dependencies downloaded and the project properly compiled. :)

Things to fix or change:

The patch for documentation CSS and dohack script is still needed.

Upgrade from previous version of the package will require reinstall of Nim. Lot of old files are unused now, like from /usr/local/etc/.

Probably there are more things to do, tests will be needed.

I will try to create a new version of the port in the next week, unless someone wants to do it faster. ;)

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