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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Do people use Autotools in new projects anymore? (self.linux)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by fool to c/[email protected]

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I had a teeny pet project using GNU assembly that was going to target two platforms.

Instead of keeping my handwritten worst-practices Makefile I decided to try GNU Autotools for the educated reasons of:

Text scrolling by looks pretty
Vague memories of ./configure make make install tarballs

I got hit with mysterious macro errors, recompile with -fPIE errors (didn't need this before?), autotools trying to run gcc on a .o file w/ the same options as an .s file, "no rule for all:", and other things a noob would run into. (I don't need a bugfix, since my handspun Makefile is "working on my machine" with uname -m.) So there's a bit of a learning curve here, inhibited by old documentation ~and~ ~more~ ~quietly,~ ~genAI~ ~being~ ~shittier~ ~than~ ~normal~ ~in~ ~this~ ~department~

With this I ask:

Do people still use Autotools for non-legacy stuff? If not, what do people choose for a new project's build system and why?

edit: trimmed an aside

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[–] fool 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Wow, you're right, autotools dev work started a decade prior to Linux 0.01's release. And looking deeper into ./configure, there looks to be checks running here that only matter on old Solaris systems...

At least it's not node_modules

They call it a polyfill because it polyfills your disk

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

They call it a polyfill because it polyfills your disk

nah, but storage is cheap bro, you really should just buy another hard drive! don't even think about going below 4 TB, of course!