GNU/Solaris

Since a few months or perhaps almost a couple of years, I've been trying to learn how to manually update a few software from an ordinary Solaris 11.3 GA. That's because even if I had a contract support I wouldn't have all the latest software versions I would like to use on my Solaris system.

Of course, that's not the Solaris main goals by nowadays as currently advertised. Nevertheless, against the vision one should get another system as a front-end to Solaris, I still prefer to also use Solaris as my front-end system because I also very much appreciate all the potential that Solaris has to offer in this area as well. But for that purpose I have to manually update several software to more current versions in order to keep pace with the modern world and natural evolution. It's true that Solaris 11.4 is promising a somewhat better catch-up with this, but still it doesn't seem to be among its main goals, of course! Solaris is huge and specially fitted to big-iron SPARC systems and I totally agree with this while I'm greatly delighted I still could enjoy it on my low-end toy x86_64 system.

SAFE HARBOUR / DISCLAMER

Please, note that I mean no Licenses, Rights or Copyright infringement at all in what I post here. It's just that I appreciate so much Solaris that I'd dream of (as if it were possible) having the best of many worlds merged on a single system. For instance, I would dream of something called GNU/Solaris somewhat as presented on Linux & GNU and somewhat in the sense of GNU's What's in a Name.

Building libxslt 1.1.32

The basic building strategy and general assumptions have been detailed on a previous post: Staged Building:

 $ pwd
/stage/build

$ ./gnu-build-preparation ../source/.../libxslt-1.1.32.tar.gz
...

$ cd libxml2/libxslt-1.1.32-32

$ source ../setenv-1.1.32 32

Configuration file [version 4]: /stage/build/libxslt/ld.config-32 
 Platform:     32-bit LSB 80386
 Default Library Path (ELF):   /opt/gnu/lib:/opt/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/lib
 Trusted Directories (ELF):    /lib/secure:/usr/lib/secure  (... default)

Command line:
  crle 
   -c /stage/build/libxslt/ld.config-32 
   -l /opt/gnu/lib:/opt/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/lib

LD_CONFIG_32=/stage/build/libxslt/ld.config-32

CONFIG_SHELL=

CC=/usr/bin/gcc CFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona -std=gnu99

CXX=/usr/bin/g++ CXXFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona -std=gnu++98

LD=/usr/bin/ld LDFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona

PATH=/opt/gnu/bin:/opt/usr/bin:/usr/gnu/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/usr/lib/pkgconfig

Suggested build sequence:

Fine-tune/fix config.h.in, Makefile.in and others...

$ ./configure \
    --build=i386-pc-solaris2.11 \
    --prefix=/opt/... \
    ...

$ gmake -j2

$ su
# source ../setenv-1.1.32 32

For IPS package:

# gmake DESTDIR=/stage/prototype/libxslt/1.1.32/32 install

For immediate use:

# gmake install
# zfs snapshot -r .../opt/...@libxslt-1.1.32

Building libxml2 2.98

The basic building strategy and general assumptions have been detailed on a previous post: Staged Building:

 $ pwd
/stage/build

$ ./gnu-build-preparation ../source/.../libxml2-2.9.8.tar.gz
...

$ cd libxml2/libxml2-2.9.8-32

$ source ../setenv-2.9.8 32

Configuration file [version 4]: /stage/build/libxml2/ld.config-32 
 Platform:     32-bit LSB 80386
 Default Library Path (ELF):   /opt/gnu/lib:/opt/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/lib
 Trusted Directories (ELF):    /lib/secure:/usr/lib/secure  (... default)

Command line:
  crle 
   -c /stage/build/libxml2/ld.config-32 
   -l /opt/gnu/lib:/opt/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/lib

LD_CONFIG_32=/stage/build/libxml2/ld.config-32

CONFIG_SHELL=

CC=/usr/bin/gcc CFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona -std=gnu99

CXX=/usr/bin/g++ CXXFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona -std=gnu++98

LD=/usr/bin/ld LDFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona

PATH=/opt/gnu/bin:/opt/usr/bin:/usr/gnu/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/usr/lib/pkgconfig

Suggested build sequence:

Fine-tune/fix config.h.in, Makefile.in and others...

$ ./configure \
    --build=i386-pc-solaris2.11 \
    --prefix=/opt/... \
    ...

$ gmake -j2

$ su
# source ../setenv-2.9.8 32

For IPS package:

# gmake DESTDIR=/stage/prototype/libxml2/2.9.8/32 install

For immediate use:

# gmake install
# zfs snapshot -r .../opt/...@libxml2-2.9.8

Building GNU libunistring 0.9.10

The basic building strategy and general assumptions have been detailed on a previous post: Staged Building:

 $ pwd
/stage/build

$ ./gnu-build-preparation ../source/.../libunistring-0.9.10.tar.gz
...

$ cd libunistring/libunistring-0.9.10-32

$ source ../setenv-0.9.10 32

Configuration file [version 4]: /stage/build/libunistring/ld.config-32 
 Platform:     32-bit LSB 80386
 Default Library Path (ELF):   /opt/gnu/lib:/opt/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/lib
 Trusted Directories (ELF):    /lib/secure:/usr/lib/secure  (... default)

Command line:
  crle 
   -c /stage/build/libunistring/ld.config-32 
   -l /opt/gnu/lib:/opt/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/lib

LD_CONFIG_32=/stage/build/libunistring/ld.config-32

CONFIG_SHELL=

CC=/usr/bin/gcc CFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona -std=gnu89

CXX=/usr/bin/g++ CXXFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona -std=gnu++98

LD=/usr/bin/ld LDFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona

PATH=/opt/gnu/bin:/opt/usr/bin:/usr/gnu/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/usr/lib/pkgconfig

Suggested build sequence:

Fine-tune/fix config.h.in, Makefile.in and others...

$ ./configure \
    --build=i386-pc-solaris2.11 \
    --prefix=/opt/... \
    ...

$ gmake -j2

$ su
# source ../setenv-0.9.10 32

For IPS package:

# gmake DESTDIR=/stage/prototype/libunistring/0.9.10/32 install

For immediate use:

# gmake install
# zfs snapshot -r .../opt/...@libunistring-0.9.10

Building GNU libiconv 1.15

The basic building strategy and general assumptions have been detailed on a previous post: Staged Building:

 $ pwd
/stage/build

$ ./gnu-build-preparation ../source/.../libiconv-1.15.tar.gz
...

$ cd libiconv/libiconv-1.15-32

$ source ../setenv-1.15 32

Configuration file [version 4]: /stage/build/libiconv/ld.config-32 
 Platform:     32-bit LSB 80386
 Default Library Path (ELF):   /opt/gnu/lib:/opt/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/lib
 Trusted Directories (ELF):    /lib/secure:/usr/lib/secure  (... default)

Command line:
  crle 
   -c /stage/build/libiconv/ld.config-32 
   -l /opt/gnu/lib:/opt/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/lib

LD_CONFIG_32=/stage/build/libiconv/ld.config-32

CONFIG_SHELL=

CC=/usr/bin/gcc CFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona -std=gnu89

CXX=/usr/bin/g++ CXXFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona -std=gnu++98

LD=/usr/bin/ld LDFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona

PATH=/opt/gnu/bin:/opt/usr/bin:/usr/gnu/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/usr/lib/pkgconfig

Suggested build sequence:

Fine-tune/fix config.h.in, Makefile.in and others...

$ ./configure \
    --build=i386-pc-solaris2.11 \
    --prefix=/opt/... \
    ...

$ gmake -j2

$ su
# source ../setenv-1.15 32

For IPS package:

# gmake DESTDIR=/stage/prototype/libiconv/1.15/32 install

For immediate use:

# gmake install
# zfs snapshot -r .../opt/...@libiconv-1.15

NOTE

This build is somewhat tricky because it has a cyclic dependency on GNU gettext, which depends back on GNU libiconv. One way to solve the issue is to build GNU libiconv first using --without-libintl-prefix, then GNU gettext and finally GNU libiconv once more using --with-libintl-prefix=/opt/gnu. But before getting to GNU gettext, one should pass by GNU libunistring, GNU libxml2 and perhaps ncurses.

Building GNU gperf 3.1

The basic building strategy and general assumptions have been detailed on a previous post: Staged Building:

 $ pwd
/stage/build

$ ./gnu-build-preparation ../source/.../gperf-3.1.tar.gz
...

$ cd gperf/gperf-3.1-32

$ source ../setenv-3.1 32

Configuration file [version 4]: /stage/build/gperf/ld.config-32 
 Platform:     32-bit LSB 80386
 Default Library Path (ELF):   /opt/gnu/lib:/opt/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/lib
 Trusted Directories (ELF):    /lib/secure:/usr/lib/secure  (... default)

Command line:
  crle 
   -c /stage/build/gperf/ld.config-32 
   -l /opt/gnu/lib:/opt/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/lib

LD_CONFIG_32=/stage/build/gperf/ld.config-32

CONFIG_SHELL=

CC=/usr/bin/gcc CFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona -std=gnu89

CXX=/usr/bin/g++ CXXFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona -std=gnu++98

LD=/usr/bin/ld LDFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona

PATH=/opt/gnu/bin:/opt/usr/bin:/usr/gnu/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/usr/lib/pkgconfig

Suggested build sequence:

Fine-tune/fix config.h.in, Makefile.in and others...

$ ./configure \
    --build=i386-pc-solaris2.11 \
    --prefix=/opt/... \
    ...

$ gmake -j2

$ su
# source ../setenv-3.1 32

For IPS package:

# gmake DESTDIR=/stage/prototype/gperf/3.1/32 install

For immediate use:

# gmake install
# zfs snapshot -r .../opt/...@gperf-3.1

Buidling GNU readline 5.1

The basic building strategy and general assumptions have been detailed on a previous post: Staged Building:

 $ pwd
/stage/build

$ ./gnu-build-preparation ../source/.../readline-5.1.tar.gz
...

$ cd readline/readline-5.1-32

$ source ../setenv-5.1 32

Configuration file [version 4]: /stage/build/readline/ld.config-32 
 Platform:     32-bit LSB 80386
 Default Library Path (ELF):   /opt/gnu/lib:/opt/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/lib
 Trusted Directories (ELF):    /lib/secure:/usr/lib/secure  (... default)

Command line:
  crle 
   -c /stage/build/readline/ld.config-32 
   -l /opt/gnu/lib:/opt/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/lib

LD_CONFIG_32=/stage/build/readline/ld.config-32

CONFIG_SHELL=

CC=/usr/bin/gcc CFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona -std=gnu89

CXX=/usr/bin/g++ CXXFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona -std=gnu++98

LD=/usr/bin/ld LDFLAGS=-m32 -march=nocona -mtune=nocona

PATH=/opt/gnu/bin:/opt/usr/bin:/usr/gnu/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/usr/lib/pkgconfig

Suggested build sequence:

Fine-tune/fix config.h.in, Makefile.in and others...

$ ./configure \
    --build=i386-pc-solaris2.11 \
    --prefix=/opt/... \
    ...

$ gmake -j2

$ su
# source ../setenv-5.1 32

For IPS package:

# gmake DESTDIR=/stage/prototype/readline/5.1/32 install

For immediate use:

# gmake install
# zfs snapshot -r .../opt/...@readline-5.1

Building SQLite 3.24.0

I'm updating my SQLite to the latest version as by the time of this writing. The last time I did that (on July 2017, hence almost 1 year ago) I was able to build version 3.19.3. This time I'm building version 3.24.0. Just to make things more interesting I'm building it on an even older system, a 32-bits Solaris 11 Express SRU-14, wow!

Roughly speaking the procedure is virtually the same, but there were minor hurdles which I still don't know if they are due to new version or the older system. Anyway, I document the workarounds so that it shall help build some knowledge on the matter for future attempts on building newer versions.

Building Mercurial 4.6

On a world where the popular way is to adopt Linux and Git I still would select Solaris and Mercurial as more specific and powerful alternatives.

Solaris 11.3 GA offers Mercurial 3.4 (still straight through from Selenic Consulting) while Solaris 11 Express offered the even older ancient version 1.3.1. Of course, that's crazy for the present time as they both can be considered relics! So I set to instate an upgraded version all by myself instead of waiting or relying on the official distribution of Solaris, which understandably is not strongly focused on this particular matter.

My goal is to achieve the following even under a legacy Solaris 11 Express 32-bits!

$ hg --version
Mercurial Distributed SCM (version 4.6)
(see https://mercurial-scm.org for more information)

Copyright (C) 2005-2018 Matt Mackall and others
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. 
There is NO warranty; not even for ... A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. (Wow!)

As usual, I begin by downloading the source-code tarball from the official web site and, once more, I perform the basic building strategy and general assumptions already detailed on one of my previous posts: Staged Building.

Installing Docutils 0.14

I've recently built and installed Python version 2.7.15 on Solaris 11 Express. Soon after I was trying to install the latest version of Mercurial (4.6 at the time of this writing), but on the last moments I've got to know the required dependency on Docutils, a Python utility which positions itself as:

"Docutils is an open-source text processing system for processing plaintext documentation into useful formats, such as HTML, LaTeX, man-pages, open-document or XML. It includes reStructuredText, the easy to read, easy to use, what-you-see-is-what-you-get plaintext markup language."

People seem to prefer, for obvious reasons I presume, the acronym ReST instead of the very long name ReStructuredText and I've visited the ReST Primer in order to know a little something about it and, well, OK, thank you. Anyway:

"This primer introduces the most common features of reStructuredText, but there are a lot more to explore. The Quick reStructuredText user reference is a good place to go next. For complete details, the reStructuredText Markup Specification is the place to go [1]."

To install it:

Building Python 2.7.15

On this post I'll document how to build the (up to this writing) latest version of Python version 2 series. But instead of doing it under a 64-bits Solaris 11.3 GA, this time I'll do it under a 32-bits Solaris 11 Express SRU-14. I'll do so because Python has become an important technology upon which many other depend and because running 32-bits software is still important in the 3rd world where most of people remain on a deprived situation and there's not enough discarded 64-bits hardware for them to reuse. Running a 32-bits Solaris on these legacy hardware is pure gold them. This way deprived people have a chance of getting latest Python on legacy hardware they can afford. It's true one could argue, for instance, that running FreeBSD or even Linux could be more appealing to this scenario, but that's not Solaris, which IMO still is overall better than both of them.

$ python
Python 2.7.15 (default, May 27 2018, 21:38:19)
[GCC 3.4.3 (csl-sol210-3_4-20050802)] on sunos5
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> 

$ cat /etc/release
            Oracle Solaris 11 Express snv_151a X86
     Copyright (c) 2010, Oracle ...  All rights reserved.
                  Assembled 04 November 2010

$ pkg info entire |grep Summary |sed 's/.*[\(]\(.*\)[\)].*/\1/'
Oracle Solaris 11 Express 2010.11 SRU 14

$ isainfo -v
32-bit i386 applications
        ssse3 ahf sse3 sse2 sse fxsr mmx cmov sep cx8 tsc fpu 

Building pkg-config 0.29.2

The latest version, 0.29.2 (up to this writing), of the pkg-config tool from FreeeDesktop.org, is missing in Solaris 11 Express, but present on Solaris 11.3 GA under an IPS package of the same name, although outdated as to version 0.23. This small utility is extremely handy while building software from source-code and can also be integrated into GNU autoconf and automake utilities.

What surprised me was its dependency on at least glib-2.0. The bundled version of glib failed to build (at least under a 32-bits Solaris 11 Express). But that wasn't really an issue because since Solaris 11 Express, glib is part of Solaris 11 IPS repositories.

Building libffi 3.0.13

The library libffi (from Foreign Function Interface) is a required dependency at least for building Python. It's reported to be used on Ruby and OpenJDK among others as well. The last time I've checked its official website the latest version was 3.2.1, BUT somehow from minor version 1 and beyond, that is, all versions following the 3.0.x branch seems buggy and don't build under (32-bits) Solaris 11 Express, despite the alleged platform support. Nevertheless, it's true I could built version 3.2.1 under Solaris 11.3 GA both 32 and 64 bits, hence the buggy thing on Solaris 11 Express could be other outdate GNU tools as well. In fact, interestingly, Solaris 11.3 GA (since Solaris 11 Express) still packages version 3.0.9 on its official repositories. I don't know if version 3.0.13 brings any enhancement to Solaris, but it builds successfully and is presumably better so I otherwise use it.

NOTE

Version 3.2.1 (libffi.so.6.0.4) can be successfully built under Solaris 11.3 GA, either 32-bits or 64-bits. Hence I'm wondering if the 32-bits version built under Solaris 11.3 could be reused on a 32-bits Solaris 11 Express. AFAIK the only dependencies are on libc.so.1 and libgcc_s.so.1.

Java 7 removal

By the way, after a lot of work updating Java, one may think of getting rid of legacy Java 7 in Solaris 11.3 GA, but I regret to inform that forcing this may cripple the system or at least lead to some unsupported configuration.

NOTE

If, on the other hand, an Ad Hoc Java installation has been made without IPS, then it may be easier to work out the removal as long as one assures no further dependencies would be broken.

Updating Java ad hoc

If one somehow depends on Java and it's not the case of a legacy dependency which will be insulated on an island system of yet very restricted subnetwork, then it will certainly need to get Java updated from time to time, because of security fixes and required new functionalities and support. But in addition, if the system isn't a more recent Solaris 11 where one can't or doesn't want IPS taking care of the update, then it will be necessary to perform an ad hoc Java update. That's probably the case with a Solaris 11 Express system or even Solaris 10, although I do highlight that in case of a Solaris 10, perhaps fortunately there's an additional option to using the old SVr4 package system to get the update in place in a presumably easier way.

The Java Archive

One may get to the official The Java Archive (as I call it) download page which link is found to the bottom of the official Java SE Downloads page. As dully warned by Oracle the legacy artifacts are unsupported and security flawed:
 

"The Java Archive offers access to some of our historical Java releases. WARNING: These older versions of the JRE and JDK are provided to help developers debug issues in older systems. They are not updated with the latest security patches and are not recommended for use in production."

Updating Java via IPS

The world knows Java, for the good, and for the bad, whatever. Bottom line is one way or the other you're gonna need to handle its existence and pervasiveness. Fortunately, Java is Oracle's as well as Solaris is and thus there's an easier way of handling it via IPS, even if one doesn't have an agreement for having access to an IPS support repository. This post is about a more streamlined way of how to do it based on the article: How to Update Only Java on Your Oracle Solaris 11 System. For this post I assume just a publicly available Solaris 11.3 GA system.

Terminator

Terminator (by Chris Jones) is a very convenient command-line GUI middleware. That's because it excels on multiplexing a single GUI window for multiple GNOME terminals. One could try to achieve similar results by simply running GNU screen with multiple (split terminal) regions within a single GNOME terminal but in the end it can't keep up with all the features of a specialized GUI software as Terminator. The main focus of GNU screen is not the GUI thing, but the underlying shell process thing.

Under Solaris 11.3, Terminator is dependent on Python 2 and GTK+ 2:

The command-line GUI

To achieve an efficient and functional UNIX command-line interface should be easy, but that's not always the case, because of the myriad of options and personal tastes, needless to say the many specific scenarios with unique requirements that may come into play.

On the seek for the "perfect terminal" I actually like to combine three things:

• GNOME terminals
  The fundamental underlying GUI terminal.
   
• Terminator
  The fundamental GUI window multiplexer.
   
• GNU screen
  The fundamental underlying shell process preserver. 
   

Building zlib 1.2.11

The basic building strategy and general assumptions have been detailed on a previous post: Staged Building.

 $ pwd
/stage/build

$ ./gnu-build-preparation ../source/.../zlib-1.2.11.tar.xz
...

$ cd zlib/zlib-1.2.11-64

$ source ../setenv 64

CONFIG_SHELL=/usr/bin/bash

CC=/usr/bin/gcc CFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2 -std=gnu89

CXX=/usr/bin/g++ CXXFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2 -std=gnu++03

LD=/usr/bin/ld LDFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2

PATH=/opt/gnu/bin:/usr/gnu/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=

Suggested build sequence:

Fine-tune/fix config.h.in, Makefile.in and others...

$ ./configure \
    --build=x86_64-pc-solaris2.11 \
    --prefix=/opt/... \
    ...

$ gmake -j3

For IPS package:

$ gmake DESTDIR=/stage/prototype/zlib/1.2.11/64 install

For immediate use:

$ sudo gmake install
$ sudo zfs snapshot -r .../opt/...@zlib-1.2.11

Building GNU make 4.2.1

The basic building strategy and general assumptions have been detailed on a previous post: Staged Building:

 $ pwd
/stage/build

$ ./gnu-build-preparation ../source/.../make-4.2.1.tar.bz2
...

$ cd make/make-4.2.1-64

$ source ../setenv 64

CONFIG_SHELL=/usr/bin/bash

CC=/usr/bin/gcc CFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2 -std=gnu89

CXX=/usr/bin/g++ CXXFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2 -std=gnu++03

LD=/usr/bin/ld LDFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2

PATH=/opt/gnu/bin:/usr/gnu/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=

Suggested build sequence:

Fine-tune/fix config.h.in, Makefile.in and others...

$ ./configure \
    --build=x86_64-pc-solaris2.11 \
    --prefix=/opt/... \
    ...

$ gmake -j3

For IPS package:

$ gmake DESTDIR=/stage/prototype/make/4.2.1/64 install

For immediate use:

$ sudo gmake install
$ sudo zfs snapshot -r .../opt/...@make-4.2.1

Building GNU automake 1.16.1

I start with the same considerations from the post Building autoconf 2.69. The GNU automake library is sometimes used on GNU buildings so I add it to my crazy list of GNU software to manually build.

NOTE

On this post I'm using the lastest GNU automake verion at the time of this writing. But sometimes one particular version simply doesn't work. For instance, version 1.16 fails building, but version 1.16.1 succeeds.

The basic building strategy and general assumptions have been detailed on a previous post: Staged Building, so I'll (hopefully) get more straight to the point:

$ pwd
/stage/build

$ ./gnu-build-preparation ../source/.../automake-1.16.1.tar.xz
...

$ cd automake/automake-1.16.1-64

$ source ../setenv 64

CONFIG_SHELL=/usr/bin/bash

CC=/usr/bin/gcc CFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2 -std=gnu89

CXX=/usr/bin/g++ CXXFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2 -std=gnu++03

LD=/usr/bin/ld LDFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2

PATH=/opt/gnu/bin:/usr/gnu/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=

Suggested build sequence:

Fine-tune/fix config.h.in, Makefile.in and others...

$ ./configure \
  --build=x86_64-pc-solaris2.11 \
  --prefix=/opt/... \
  ...

$ gmake -j3

For IPS package:

$ sudo gmake DESTDIR=/stage/prototype/automake/1.16.1/64 install

For immediate use:

$ sudo gmake install
$ sudo snapshot -r .../opt/...@automake-1.16.1

Building GNU autoconf 2.69

I start with the same considerations from the post Building GNU m4. The GNU autoconf library is sometimes used on GNU buildings so I add it to my crazy list of GNU software to manually build.

The basic building strategy and general assumptions have been detailed on a previous post: Staged Building, so I'll (hopefully) get more straight to the point:

$ pwd
/stage/build

$ ./gnu-build-preparation ../source/.../autoconf-2.69.tar.xz
...

$ cd autoconf/autoconf-2.69-64

$ source ../setenv 64

CONFIG_SHELL=/usr/bin/bash

CC=/usr/bin/gcc CFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2 -std=gnu89

CXX=/usr/bin/g++ CXXFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2 -std=gnu++03

LD=/usr/bin/ld LDFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2

PATH=/opt/gnu/bin:/usr/gnu/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=

Suggested build sequence:

Fine-tune/fix config.h.in, Makefile.in and others...

$ ./configure \
  --build=x86_64-pc-solaris2.11 \
  --prefix=/opt/... \
  ...

$ gmake -j4

For IPS package:

$ sudo gmake DESTDIR=/stage/prototype/autoconf/2.69/64 install

For immediate use:

$ sudo gmake install
$ sudo zfs snapshot -r .../opt/...@autoconf-2.69

Building GNU m4 1.4.18

I start with the same considerations from the post Building GNU libtool 2.4.6. The GNU m4 library is sometimes used on GNU buildings so I add it to my crazy list of GNU software to manually build.

The basic building strategy and general assumptions have been detailed on a previous post: Staged Building, so I'll (hopefully) get more straight to the point:

$ pwd
/stage/build

$ ./gnu-build-preparation ../source/.../m4-1.4.18.tar.xz
...

$ cd m4/m4-1.4.18

$ source ../setenv 64

CONFIG_SHELL=/usr/bin/bash

CC=/usr/bin/gcc CFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2 -std=gnu89

CXX=/usr/bin/g++ CXXFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2 -std=gnu++03

LD=/usr/bin/ld LDFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2

PATH=/opt/gnu/bin:/usr/gnu/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=

Suggested build sequence:

Fine-tune/fix config.h.in, Makefile.in and others...

$ ./configure \
  --build=x86_64-pc-solaris2.11 \
  --prefix=/opt/... \
  ...
 
$ gmake -j3

For IPS package:

$ sudo gmake DESTDIR=/stage/prototype/m4/1.4.18/64 install

For immediate use:

$ sudo gmake install
$ sudo zfs snapshot -r .../opt/...@m4-1.4.18

Building GNU libtool 2.4.6

I start with the same considerations from the post Building GNU libsigsegv 2.12. The GNU libtool library is sometimes used on GNU buildings so I add it to my crazy list of GNU software to manually build.

The basic building strategy and general assumptions have been detailed on a previous post: Staged Building, so I'll (hopefully) get more straight to the point:

$ pwd
/stage/build

$ ./gnu-build-preparation ../source/.../libtool-2.4.6.tar.xz

Processing /stage/source/.../libtool-2.4.6.tar.xz

------------------------------------
App: libtool
Ver: 2.4.6
------------------------------------

In the process, the following ZFS datasets will be created:

  rpool/stage/build/libtool
  rpool/stage/build/libtool/libtool-2.4.6
  rpool/stage/build/libtool/libtool-2.4.6-32
  rpool/stage/build/libtool/libtool-2.4.6-64

  rpool/stage/prototype/libtool
  rpool/stage/prototype/libtool/libtool-2.4.6
  rpool/stage/prototype/libtool/libtool-2.4.6/32
  rpool/stage/prototype/libtool/libtool-2.4.6/64

Enter "y" to proceed: y

Creating rpool/stage/build/libtool...
Creating rpool/stage/build/libtool/libtool-2.4.6...
   
rpool/stage/build/libtool 
rpool/stage/build/libtool/libtool-2.4.6
rpool/stage/build/libtool/libtool-2.4.6@source
rpool/stage/build/libtool/libtool-2.4.6-32 
rpool/stage/build/libtool/libtool-2.4.6-32@start
rpool/stage/build/libtool/libtool-2.4.6-64
rpool/stage/build/libtool/libtool-2.4.6-64@start

Creating data-0/stage/prototype/libtool subtree.

rpool/stage/prototype/libtool
rpool/stage/prototype/libtool/2.4.6
rpool/stage/prototype/libtool/2.4.6/32
rpool/stage/prototype/libtool/2.4.6/64

Creating pre-configuration script.

$ cd libtool/libtool-2.4.6-64

$ source ../setenv 64
...

Building GNU libsigsegv 2.12

In a crazy effort to gather an ever growing set of up-to-date GNU tools and utilities built my myself I proceed little by little on each GNU software, getting its source code and attempting the build. At first I'm concerned in just successfully building the software. But I'll try to figure out how to reference the new artifacts in a sort of side-by-side installation that could co-exist with the standard Solaris packages without mixing stuffs.

The GNU libsigsegv library is sometimes used on GNU buildings so I add it to my crazy list of GNU software to manually build. For now, it seems that later on I would have to adjust my GNU m4 macros in order to take into account this new libsigsegv version. Fortunately, later on when I build an updated version of GNU m4 I'll have the option (--with-libsigsegv-prefix) to automatically do that.

The basic building strategy and general assumptions have been detailed on a previous post: Staged Building, so I'll (hopefully) get more straight to the point:

$ pwd
/stage/build

$ ./gnu-build-preparation ../source/.../libsigegv-2.12.tar.gz

Processing /stage/source/.../libsigsegv-2.12.tar.gz

------------------------------------
App: libsigsegv
Ver: 2.12
------------------------------------

In the process, the following ZFS datasets will be created:

  rpool/stage/build/libsigsegv
  rpool/stage/build/libsigsegv/libsigsegv-2.12
  rpool/stage/build/libsigsegv/libsigsegv-2.12-32
  rpool/stage/build/libsigsegv/libsigsegv-2.12-64

  rpool/stage/prototype/libsigsegv
  rpool/stage/prototype/libsigsegv/libsigsegv-2.12
  rpool/stage/prototype/libsigsegv/libsigsegv-2.12/32
  rpool/stage/prototype/libsigsegv/libsigsegv-2.12/64

Enter "y" to proceed: y
 
Creating rpool/stage/build/libsigsegv...
Creating rpool/stage/build/libsigsegv/libsigsegv-2.12...

rpool/stage/build/libsigsegv
rpool/stage/build/libsigsegv/libsigsegv-2.12
rpool/stage/build/libsigsegv/libsigsegv-2.12@source
rpool/stage/build/libsigsegv/libsigsegv-2.12-32
rpool/stage/build/libsigsegv/libsigsegv-2.12-32@start
rpool/stage/build/libsigsegv/libsigsegv-2.12-64
rpool/stage/build/libsigsegv/libsigsegv-2.12-64@start

Creating rpool/stage/prototype/libsigsegv subtree.

rpool/stage/prototype/libsigsegv
rpool/stage/prototype/libsigsegv/2.12
rpool/stage/prototype/libsigsegv/2.12/32
rpool/stage/prototype/libsigsegv/2.12/64

Creating pre-configuration script.

$ cd libsigsegv/libsigsegv-2.12-64

$ source ../setenv 64

CONFIG_SHELL=

CC=/usr/bin/gcc CFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2 -std=gnu89

CXX=/usr/bin/g++ CXXFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2 -std=gnu++03

LD=/usr/bin/ld LDFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2

PATH=/usr/gnu/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=

Suggested build sequence:

Fine-tune/fix config.h.in, Makefile.in and others...

$ ./configure \
  --build=x86_64-pc-solaris2.11 \
  --prefix=/opt/... \
  ...

$ gmake -j4

For IPS package:

$ sudo gmake DESTDIR=/stage/prototype/libsigsegv/2.12/64 install

For immediate use:

$ sudo gmake install
$ zfs snapshot -r .../opt/...@libsigsegv-2.12

Building GNU Screen 4.6.2

Working on the command line interface is a typical UNIX administrator routine. GNU screen offers one interesting alternative for working with multiple terminals within a single text-mode display or X (or other GUI environment) window. But the whole set of functionalities are far more extensive. GNU screen delves into a lot of terminal complexities which can become quite difficult to master, specially nowadays where one usually surf many layers above the bare-bones foundations.

Of course there are alternatives to GNU Screen. Some are roughly equivalent, such as tmux, while others, such as Terminator (blog) just specializes in splitting one X window into multiple terminals each running an independent shell session. What seems more interesting is combining the facilities of Terminator and Screen.

Solaris 11.3 GA offers a rather outdated versions, 4.0.3, while Solaris 11.4 Beta is packaging version 4.6.1. Perhaps, until Solaris 11.4 official launch that gets better; we'll see. But for now I'm going to build myself version 4.6.2, the latest. By doing this I hope to empower me on building later versions as I please.

The basic building strategy and general assumptions have been detailed on a previous post: Staged Building, so I'll (hopefully) get more straight to the point:

$ pwd
/stage/build

$ ./gnu-build-preparation ../source/.../screen-4.6.2.tar.gz
...

$ cd screen/screen-4.6.2-64

$ source ../setenv 64

CONFIG_SHELL=

CC=/usr/bin/gcc CFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2 -std=gnu89
 
CXX=/usr/bin/g++ CXXFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2 -std=gnu++03
 
LD=/usr/bin/ld LDFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2

PATH=/usr/gnu/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
 
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=

Suggested build sequence:
 
$ ./configure \
  --build=x86_64-pc-solaris2.11 \
  --prefix=/opt/... \
  --enable-pam \
  --enable-colors256
 
$ gmake -j3
 
For IPS package:

$ sudo gmake DESTDIR=/stage/prototype/screen/4.6.2/64 install

For immediate use:

$ sudo gmake install
$ sudo zfs snapshot -r .../opt/...@screen-4.6.2

Building Node.js 8.10.0

This post is more of a continuous effort in order to learn how to build by myself some more up-to-date artifacts, this time Node.js 8.10.0 (LTS), to my preferred software platform: Solaris 11. In particular, I'm still considering Solaris 11.3 GA, which by the time of this writing is about 3 years old with GCC 4.8.2. Solaris 11.4 GA is expected to arrive late this year (2018).

To partially quote Node.js:
 

Node.js® is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine. Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient. ... .

Node.js is a typical case for a Solaris back-end system, where its cloud-ready infrastructure would be typically very well-suited to the task: SMF, ZFS, zones, higher threading count and advanced networking capabilities.

The version used in this post, Node.js 8.10.0 (LTS), is a March 2018 security update. I've chosen the LTS 8.x series because it's the latest branch that better aligns to the Solaris way-of-things. It's expected to live until Dec 2019 and not beyond because it's aligning to OpenSSL 1.0.2 life-cycle to which it depends.

This post's (at the time of this writing) up-to-date custom build is relevant not only because of the security side, but because the software isn't available in the official repositories and, even if it could be one day, it would be uncertain if the update pace of the support repository would be acceptable. Furthermore, by performing a custom build instead of just downloading pre-built binaries one ensures getting more exactly what's needed and optimized for a particular machine as per specific compiler (CPU) options and source-code modules selection.

Right from the start I was able to build a 64-bits Node.JS 8.10.0 (LTS) in Solaris 11.4 Beta (already available) with GCC 5.5.0, but at first I wasn't able to repeat the task under Solaris 11.3 GA and I was somewhat settled with it as the "build instructions" stated a more updated (4.9.4 - Aug 3, 2016) GCC was required and I only had an almost 3-years old 4.8.2 (from Oct 16, 2013) in Solaris 11.3. Although a newer GCC is generally better, by inspecting the initial build failures in Solaris 11.3 GA I've noticed that there weren't that many changes that could render the task impossible. This motivated me to take some time to further investigate a way of trying to accomplish the task.

Staged Building

OUT OF DATE

Now and then since last year I've been trying to improve my skill on building myself some more up-to-date 64-bits software artifacts to use on my prefered OS (currently, Solaris 11.3 GA) and optimized to my particular CPU (an old Intel Core 2). I've been somewhat radical experimenting this for a few applications, programming languages and GNU tools and utilities. The learning curve is slow and rather steep, with the added difficulty that a Solaris system isn't a true GNU/Linux, despite the honorable efforts to make it compatible enough for running some popular GNU software and performing standard GNU builds of open-source software.

Building Ruby 2.5.0

This post is more of a continuous effort in order to learn how to build by myself some more up-to-date artifacts, this time Ruby version 2.5.0, to my preferred software platform: Solaris 11.

In particular, I'm still considering Solaris 11.3 GA, which by the time of this writing is about 3 years old with GCC 4.8.2. Solaris 11.4 GA is expected to arrive late this year (2018), but curiously I wasn't yet able to succeed in building Ruby 2.5.0 in Solaris 11.4 Beta (already available) with GCC 5.5.0.

This very latest stable Ruby version 2.5.0 isn't yet available on the package repositories of any Solaris version and that's why I'm doing all this. For instance, on Solaris 11.3 GA:

$ pkg search -H -o pkg.shortfmri *:set:pkg.fmri:runtime/ruby* \
  |sort -u
pkg:/runtime/ruby-18@1.8.7.374-0.175.3.0.0.24.0
pkg:/runtime/ruby-19@1.9.3.551-0.175.3.0.0.30.0
pkg:/runtime/ruby-19/ruby-tk@1.9.3.551-0.175.3.0.0.30.0
pkg:/runtime/ruby-21@2.1.6-0.175.3.0.0.30.0
pkg:/runtime/ruby-21/ruby-tk@2.1.6-0.175.3.0.0.30.0
pkg:/runtime/ruby@1.9-0.175.3.0.0.30.0

In my previous learning path towards building myself a few open-source software to Solaris 11.3 I've ended up with a facility script presented on another post, GNU build preparation, which was the result from a few early experiments (which I shall review at some point in the near future, I hope):

• Building Qt 4.8.7
• Building SQLite 
• Building Tcl / Tk 
• Building Harbour 

I assume the developer-gnu IPS package has been installed and that the following ZFS delegations are already in place:

$ zfs allow rpool/software/build
---- Permissions on rpool/software/build ------------------
Permission sets:
    @descendent clone,compression,destroy,promote,quota,
                readonly,rename,reservation,share,sharenfs
    @generic create,diff,hold,mount,receive,
             release,rollback,send,snapshot,userprop
Descendent permissions:
    user user1 @descendent
Local+Descendent permissions:
    user user1 @generic

$ zfs allow rpool/software/prototype
---- Permissions on rpool/software/prototype --------------
Permission sets:
    @descendent clone,compression,destroy,promote,quota,
                readonly,rename,reservation,share,sharenfs
    @generic create,diff,hold,mount,receive,
             release,rollback,send,snapshot,userprop
Descendent permissions:
    user user1 @descendent
Local+Descendent permissions:
    user user1 @generic

After downloading and verifying the checksum of a compressed source-code tarball and using the gnu-build-prepration script from the GNU build preparation post I end up with the following build structure mounted at /software (the details of running the GNU build preparation script are presented in the last example of that that post):
  
rpool/software/build/ruby
rpool/software/build/ruby/ruby-2.5.0
rpool/software/build/ruby/ruby-2.5.0@source 
rpool/software/build/ruby/ruby-2.5.0-gnu32 
rpool/software/build/ruby/ruby-2.5.0-gnu32@start
rpool/software/build/ruby/ruby-2.5.0-gnu64 
rpool/software/build/ruby/ruby-2.5.0-gnu64@start
 
rpool/software/prototype/ruby 
rpool/software/prototype/ruby/ruby-2.5.0
rpool/software/prototype/ruby/ruby-2.5.0/gnu32
rpool/software/prototype/ruby/ruby-2.5.0/gnu64

NOTE ❊

Since the original writing of this post I have revised some important assumptions and recommendations which would lead to an extensive rewriting. Instead of doing it all over again, I'm kindly asking that you pay attention to the following changes:

1. I've adjusted all the ZFS tree datasets' names
   (the development tree is now rooted at /stage)
    
2. I've started using DESTDIR and a different --prefix
   (DESTDIR=/stage/prototype/ruby/2.5.0/64)
   (--prefix=/opt/sfw/ruby/2.5.0)
    
3. I'm taking a final ZFS snapshot as the deployment closing.
   (zfs snapshot -r .../opt/sfw/ruby/2.5.0@release)

Hence, in what follows just keep an eye on adjusting accordingly.

The next step is to edit the configuration script (setenv) that is delivered in the previous step in order to adjust / tune up some environment variables which are influential to the build process. Then, before starting the build, extend the environment accordingly. For instance, to prepare a 64-bits build on my particular machine I do as follows:

$ cd ruby/ruby-2.5.0-64

$ source ../setenv 64

--prefix=/software/prototype/.../gnu64
--build=x86_64-pc-solaris2.11

CONFIG_SHELL=

CC=/usr/bin/gcc CFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2 -std=gnu99

CXX=/usr/bin/g++ CXXFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2 -std=gnu++11

LD=/usr/bin/ld LDFLAGS=-m64 -march=core2

PATH=/usr/gnu/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=

Keyboard - US Layout

It's true that in general the out-of-the-box keyboard layout configuration for a standard US keyboard shall work reasonably well by falling back to the standard despite Sun-specific key-stations that usually come together.

I decided to log this post as a complement to another one called Keyboard - Layouts where I demonstrated how to fully reconfigure the keyboard for console terminals without delving into very complex system APIs. In doing so I'll add the benefit of getting rid of spurious Sun-specific key-stations and enabling a few others that will be useful in achieving better text cursor control within console terminals.

I'll try not to repeat myself believing that any omissions on this post are fully explained on the previous one I've mentioned: Keyboard - Layouts.

Any standard hardware should do but I shall take a legacy PS/2 Dell keyboard model RT7D20 (US) as an example, which layout is a pretty standard one: