--disable-features in 109483

--disable-features in 109483

[Dmitry Antipov]

Commit 109483 introduces --disable-features, which is intended to
build small executable with the minimal dependencies; if someone
finds this option useless, confusing or just thinks that something
like --enable-minimal-build may be a bit better, please let me know.

Dmitry

Re: --disable-features in 109483

[Carsten Mattner]

On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 2:48 PM, Dmitry Antipov <dmantipov@yandex.ru> wrote:
> Commit 109483 introduces --disable-features, which is intended to
> build small executable with the minimal dependencies; if someone
> finds this option useless, confusing or just thinks that something
> like --enable-minimal-build may be a bit better, please let me know.

--disable-features sounds like it has a mandatory list of features to
disable like '--disable-features=xft,xml2'. --enable-minimal-build isn't
as ambiguous.

Re: --disable-features in 109483

[Andreas Schwab]

Carsten Mattner <carstenmattner@gmail.com> writes:

> On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 2:48 PM, Dmitry Antipov <dmantipov@yandex.ru> wrote:
>> Commit 109483 introduces --disable-features, which is intended to
>> build small executable with the minimal dependencies; if someone
>> finds this option useless, confusing or just thinks that something
>> like --enable-minimal-build may be a bit better, please let me know.
>
> --disable-features sounds like it has a mandatory list of features to
> disable like '--disable-features=xft,xml2'. --enable-minimal-build isn't
> as ambiguous.

Incidentally, --disable-foo never accepts an argument, whereas
--enable-foo does (and --disable-foo is the same as --enable-foo=no).

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, schwab@linux-m68k.org
GPG Key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."

Re: --disable-features in 109483

[Dani Moncayo]

>>> Commit 109483 introduces --disable-features, which is intended to
>>> build small executable with the minimal dependencies; if someone
>>> finds this option useless, confusing or just thinks that something
>>> like --enable-minimal-build may be a bit better, please let me know.
>>
>> --disable-features sounds like it has a mandatory list of features to
>> disable like '--disable-features=xft,xml2'. --enable-minimal-build isn't
>> as ambiguous.
>
> Incidentally, --disable-foo never accepts an argument, whereas
> --enable-foo does (and --disable-foo is the same as --enable-foo=no).

Another nitpick: IMO "--minimal-build" would be more brief and clear.

-- 
Dani Moncayo

Re: --disable-features in 109483

[chad]

On 07 Aug 2012, at 07:49, Dani Moncayo <dmoncayo@gmail.com> wrote:
> Another nitpick: IMO "--minimal-build" would be more brief and clear.

`./configure --minimal-build' should run `ln -s /bin/ed ${bindir}/emacs'.

*Chad
P.S. http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.html

Re: --disable-features in 109483

[Chong Yidong]

Dmitry Antipov <dmantipov@yandex.ru> writes:

> Commit 109483 introduces --disable-features, which is intended to
> build small executable with the minimal dependencies; if someone
> finds this option useless, confusing or just thinks that something
> like --enable-minimal-build may be a bit better, please let me know.

You are missing a NEWS file.

But in any case, I'm not sure I understand the purpose of this flag, or
why, if it is supposed to build a minimal Emacs, X support is left
enabled.  Please explain the use-case.

Re: --disable-features in 109483

[Dmitry Antipov]

On 08/08/2012 07:33 AM, Chong Yidong wrote:

> You are missing a NEWS file.

And doc/lispref/anti.texi too :-).

> But in any case, I'm not sure I understand the purpose of this flag, or
> why, if it is supposed to build a minimal Emacs, X support is left
> enabled.  Please explain the use-case.

1) Testing: check whether the work on FEATURE1, FEATURE2, ... FEATUREN
do not broke the build without FEATURE1, ... and without all of these
features.

2) Building small OS distribution to fit in CD, 100Mb or so. Such
a distributions usually prefers vi{m} and/or small Emacs clones,
but who knows; such a distribution is not necessary X-less.

3) Using minimalistic desktop environments on top of the old hardware.

Dmitry

Re: --disable-features in 109483

[andres.ramirez]

Hi Dmitry.

What is the size of this minimalist emacs?
Probably. It could fit on my n800 :).

Andrés
At Wed, 08 Aug 2012 08:10:35 +0400,
Dmitry Antipov wrote:
> 
> On 08/08/2012 07:33 AM, Chong Yidong wrote:
> 
> > You are missing a NEWS file.
> 
> And doc/lispref/anti.texi too :-).
> 
> > But in any case, I'm not sure I understand the purpose of this flag, or
> > why, if it is supposed to build a minimal Emacs, X support is left
> > enabled.  Please explain the use-case.
> 
> 1) Testing: check whether the work on FEATURE1, FEATURE2, ... FEATUREN
> do not broke the build without FEATURE1, ... and without all of these
> features.
> 
> 2) Building small OS distribution to fit in CD, 100Mb or so. Such
> a distributions usually prefers vi{m} and/or small Emacs clones,
> but who knows; such a distribution is not necessary X-less.
> 
> 3) Using minimalistic desktop environments on top of the old hardware.
> 
> Dmitry
> 
> 

Re: --disable-features in 109483

[andres.ramirez]

Hi Dmitry.

What is the size of this minimalist emacs?
Probably. It could fit on my n800 :).

Andrés
At Wed, 08 Aug 2012 08:10:35 +0400,
Dmitry Antipov wrote:
> 
> On 08/08/2012 07:33 AM, Chong Yidong wrote:
> 
> > You are missing a NEWS file.
> 
> And doc/lispref/anti.texi too :-).
> 
> > But in any case, I'm not sure I understand the purpose of this flag, or
> > why, if it is supposed to build a minimal Emacs, X support is left
> > enabled.  Please explain the use-case.
> 
> 1) Testing: check whether the work on FEATURE1, FEATURE2, ... FEATUREN
> do not broke the build without FEATURE1, ... and without all of these
> features.
> 
> 2) Building small OS distribution to fit in CD, 100Mb or so. Such
> a distributions usually prefers vi{m} and/or small Emacs clones,
> but who knows; such a distribution is not necessary X-less.
> 
> 3) Using minimalistic desktop environments on top of the old hardware.
> 
> Dmitry
> 
> 

Re: --disable-features in 109483

[Dmitry Antipov]

On 08/08/2012 08:25 AM, andres.ramirez wrote:

> What is the size of this minimalist emacs?
> Probably. It could fit on my n800 :).

My 64-bit PC build is:

  default GTK3: 14186K executable, 75 library dependencies
  --disable-features --with-x-toolkit=no: 13250K executable, 18 library dependencies
  --disable-features --without-x: 12782K, 7 library dependencies.

Note that 32-bit executables are much smaller (n800 is 32-bit ARM, IIUC).
Also minimal build may imply -Os.

Dmitry

Re: --disable-features in 109483

[Chong Yidong]

Dmitry Antipov <dmantipov@yandex.ru> writes:

> On 08/08/2012 07:33 AM, Chong Yidong wrote:
>
>> You are missing a NEWS file.
>
> And doc/lispref/anti.texi too :-).

This kind of change probable not worth documenting in the Antinews.  But
anyway, the usual procedure is to document in NEWS first, then update
the documentation later during the run up to the pretest.

> 1) Testing: check whether the work on FEATURE1, FEATURE2, ... FEATUREN
> do not broke the build without FEATURE1, ... and without all of these
> features.
>
> 2) Building small OS distribution to fit in CD, 100Mb or so. Such
> a distributions usually prefers vi{m} and/or small Emacs clones,
> but who knows; such a distribution is not necessary X-less.
>
> 3) Using minimalistic desktop environments on top of the old hardware.

(2) and (3) are very theoretical.  If you are compiling on an old
machine which doesn't doesn't have dbus libraries etc., configure
already automatically omits them, so there's no benefit from this flag.
As for people doing cross-compilation, like Debian packagers, they are
already sophisticated enough to figure out the appropriate configure
flags.

Anyway, disabling support for various *shared* libraries to get a
"performance improvement" is an instance of false optimization if there
ever was one.

(1) is a reasonable use, but only because you can do stuff like
--disable-features --with-rsvg to re-enable rsvg.  But this also
indicates turning off X too.  Also, I think the option should be renamed
to --without-all, since it actually affects the --with/--without options
rather than the --enable/--disable options.

Re: --disable-features in 109483

[Richard Stallman]

anti.texi is for documentation for the old version
if you have the manual for the new version.  We mention the
absence of major features, and when there was an incompatible
change, we say how to use the old Emacs version, where that
is different from how to use the new version.

There are lots of user-visible changes we don't include in the
antinews.

--
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call

Re: --disable-features in 109483

[Stefan Monnier]

> 2) Building small OS distribution to fit in CD, 100Mb or so. Such
> a distributions usually prefers vi{m} and/or small Emacs clones,
> but who knows; such a distribution is not necessary X-less.

But then we'd need to figure out how to strip the rest of the
installation (doc, leim, lisp, etc, ...).  --disable-features only saves
a small percentage of disk space overall.

> 3) Using minimalistic desktop environments on top of the old hardware.

The auto-detection done by autoconf should already take care to disable
whatever feature is not available.


        Stefan