[mercury-users] Any plans for a Mercury deb package (debian/ubuntu)?

[Paul Bone]

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 11:01:54AM +1200, Parker Jones wrote:
> 
> Thanks for your reply Paul.
> 
> > From: pbone at csse.unimelb.edu.au
> > On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 12:14:15AM +1200, Parker Jones wrote:
> > > 
> > > Hello,
> > > 
> > > Are there any plans to release a Mercury debian package?  Last time I installed, it took several hours to compile which is a bit of a barrier to entry.  I wonder how many users would benefit from it being packaged?
> > > 
> > > Mercury has been packaged before, so perhaps it could be quite painless...
> > > http://packages.ubuntu.com/dapper/mercury
> > > http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/mercury
> > >
> > 
> > I've started work on a Debian package, but unfortunatly I don't have much spare
> > time to work on this.  I definitly agree that it would be useful.
> > 
> > See: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=379682
> 
> >From the above link I understand you want to create many debian packages (for the different grades).  This is perhaps useful but more complicated and time-consuming.  Wouldn't it be easier to simply package it exactly as it was before and get it out of the door.  Then when someone has time the packaging could be developed further.
> 
> Would really love to just type:
>   apt-get install mercury

Yes.  I'd like separate packages, but I'd also like a meta package perhaps
'mercury-dev' which should include "everything you need to develop in Mercury".

Using separate packages in Debian is actually really easy.  The hard bit is
making sure all of mercury's features are packaged correctly.  Therefore I'll
start by disabling most but the very basic features and packaging only:
    + The compiler (statically linked).
    + Other utilities and scripts that the compiler needs.
    + Mercury's equivalent of header files for the standard library.
    + C header files for the runtime system.
    + Static libraries for the runtime system and standard library.
    + The same for the mdbcomp, browse and trace libraries which are linked
      against even in no-debugging grades.
    + All libraries would be built in a single grade, asm_fast.gc

Also, packing something 'exactly as it is' for Debian isn't really possible.
Debian's policies are quite strict (and for good reason).  I've put in some
effort already to make Mercury more con formant.

If you're interested in what I've done already point your i386 or amd64 lenny
system at:
http://www.mercury.csse.unimelb.edu.au/debian/

This URL may change in the future, and I'm not making any promises about the
packages there.  Don't do this on a production server, it should be fine on
your workstation though.

Thanks for your interest.

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