[odb-users] Build system in ODB betas

[pravorskii at meta.ua]

Hi, Boris!

I found that odb-2.4.0 doesn't work with the recent version of GCC (7.3.0, for example), so I decided to try latest ODB beta.

I was surprised that releases and betas use different build systems. Currently, I am working on preparing packages for Debian and Gentoo with ODB libs and compiler to have the possibility of installing and managing dependencies via a system package manager. The main issue with betas during packaging is dependency on build2 toolchain.

Supporting build2 by ODB is not an issue in and of itself; it is a nice tool for fast building and testing in development environments. But it does require a lot more work to integrate it with distribution build systems and checking to see if it meets the requirements of any package building guidlines.

It would be great if the ODB git version would support being packaged and installed in GNU/Linux distributions via a system package manager.

I have a few proposals of how it can be fixed:

1. With build2, perform only generating autotools configs from templates, and then build packages with the system autoconfig toolchain. Is that possible?

2. Add support for autotools for the ODB git version too. I'm not sure if the files for build2 and autotools will conflict with each other.

3. Crazy idea – add cmake support. I can prepare patches if you are not against this option.

Of course, these proposals should not break building ODB on other supported operating systems.

Does that make sense? How I can help?

Thanks.