Are Autoconf253 and Automake15 Deprecated?

[Bob Perry]

Ben Paley wrote:

>On Sunday 08 August 2004 13:00, freebsd-questions-request at freebsd.org wrote:
>  
>
>>Hi,
>>I CVSup's my system (FreeBSD 4.9-p2 #0) early this morning and found
>>the following in /usr/ports/CHANGES:
>>
>>20040803:
>>AUTHOR: ade at FreeBSD.org
>>  As part of the ongoing autotools cleanup, devel/autoconf has been
>>  replaced with devel/autoconf253, and devel/automake with
>>devel/automake15. Consumers of the various autotools knobs from
>>bsd.autotools.mk should not notice any differences.  This update completes
>>the transition of autotools to true versioned packages (cf: tcl/tk)
>>
>>I just updated my watchlist in FreshPorts and it indicates that
>>autoconf253 is
>>deprecated and should be replaced with /devel/autoconf259.  Similarly,
>>automake15 should be replaced with devel/automake18.  Is FreshPorts more
>>current?  If so, will the following correctly upgrade my system:
>>
>>portupgrade -rfo /devel/automake automake
>>portupgrade -rfo /devel/autoconf autoconf
>>
>>Thanks for your assistance.
>>    
>>
>
>I've been getting all this, and the various strategies I've tried haven't 
>worked. On the other hand nothing bad seems to have happened as a result, so 
>I still feel I'm on the lucky side...
>
>Did you ever work out how to sort this? I'd really appreciate your advice If 
>you've got anywhere.
>
>Cheers,
>Ben
>
>  
>
Hi Ben,

I did receive a response from the author, ade at FreeBSD.org, which follows:

Deprecated in this sense means that porters in general should be moving 
away from the older versions of automake/autoconf, to the newer ones, 
which will eventually get removed.

Since I don't use portupgrade myself, I have no idea whether the above 
will work, but with all the entries added to /usr/ports/MOVED, a simple 
upgrade (which is essentially a no-op in terms of the version here), 
will migrate your system away from devel/autoconf -> devel/autoconf253 
and devel/automake -> devel/automake15.

As regards the freebsd-questions list, I really have no idea, since I 
don't subscribe to it due to the sheer volume of traffic it receives.  
Generally speaking, if you have a problem with a port, look at the 
MAINTAINER field, and send email to that individual and possibly also 
ports at FreeBSD.org, where people, such as myself, who are involved with 
day-to-day management of the ports/ tree tend to hang out.



Regards,

    -aDe

Based upon this response, the change in question seems to be more of a  
concern for porters and that an upgrade would make it a non-issue.  I 
really don't have any additional advice to pass along at this time, but 
I'll will post this to the mailing list again and someone with a little 
more expertise may have the time to respond.

I'm still not very comfortable playing the role of systems administrator 
and I am equally uncomfortable with FreeBSD.  I lack too many of the basic 
skills at this point and issues like this just muddy the waters even more.
 
I'm building a new pc (combo Suse/Windows) for my work and personal files 
and intend to keep my current FreeBSD box for future training/testing when 
time permits.  Looking forward to the day I can use the phrase "simple 
upgrade."

Regards,

Bob 












-- 
I've learned that whatever hits the fan will not be evenly
distributed.

FreeBSD 4.9-RELEASE-p2 #0