Supported platforms

Supported platforms

[Daniele Nicolodi]

Hello,

is there anywhere a list of the platforms (operating system and
architecture) supported by Emacs?  I found etc/MACHINES in the Emacs
sources, but it does not seem to contain an exhaustive list.

Thank you.

Cheers,
Dan

Re: Supported platforms

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Daniele Nicolodi <daniele@grinta.net>
> Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2019 14:42:32 -0600
> 
> is there anywhere a list of the platforms (operating system and
> architecture) supported by Emacs?

I don't think there are innate limitations.  Any platform that
supports running a Posix shell, GNU Make, a C99-compliant C compiler,
and a standard C library, will do.

Is there some specific question that you are interested in, or a
specific platform?  And also, what version of Emacs are we talking
about?  Versions before 27 could have problems in the dumping process.

> I found etc/MACHINES in the Emacs sources, but it does not seem to
> contain an exhaustive list.

etc/MACHINES was relevant when Emacs included a special header file
for every platform it supported.  That system was tossed long ago, so
I don't think an exhaustive list is possible anymore, although in
principle such a list could be composed for a given time instance.
Even if prepared, such a list will quickly become outdated, as new
systems are created and old go into oblivion.

Re: Supported platforms

[Daniele Nicolodi]

On 15-06-2019 00:42, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> From: Daniele Nicolodi <daniele@grinta.net>
>> Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2019 14:42:32 -0600
>>
>> is there anywhere a list of the platforms (operating system and
>> architecture) supported by Emacs?
> 
> I don't think there are innate limitations.  Any platform that
> supports running a Posix shell, GNU Make, a C99-compliant C compiler,
> and a standard C library, will do.

Where are you drawing the line to call those the only required
dependencies?  For example, Emacs uses autoconf for the build process,
thus I guess independently of the fact that autoconf support exists for
the given platform, also an m4 implementation is required.  Also, what
standard C library?

> Is there some specific question that you are interested in, or a
> specific platform?  And also, what version of Emacs are we talking
> about?  Versions before 27 could have problems in the dumping process.

It is a question mostly out of curiosity. But there have been talks
recently of working on improvements to the build process, and I am
trying to understand what systems Emacs is targeting, what systems the
build process needs to support, and on which systems Emacs is tested.

Cheers,
Dan

Re: Supported platforms

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> From: Daniele Nicolodi <daniele@grinta.net>
> Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2019 12:20:56 -0600
> 
> On 15-06-2019 00:42, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> >> From: Daniele Nicolodi <daniele@grinta.net>
> >> Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2019 14:42:32 -0600
> >>
> >> is there anywhere a list of the platforms (operating system and
> >> architecture) supported by Emacs?
> > 
> > I don't think there are innate limitations.  Any platform that
> > supports running a Posix shell, GNU Make, a C99-compliant C compiler,
> > and a standard C library, will do.
> 
> Where are you drawing the line to call those the only required
> dependencies?  For example, Emacs uses autoconf for the build process,
> thus I guess independently of the fact that autoconf support exists for
> the given platform, also an m4 implementation is required.

Not AFAIK, not for building a release tarball.  For that, you only
need a Posix-compatible shell, capable of running a configure script.

So I think what I mentioned are indeed the only required dependencies.
You will need more only if you want to build from Git.

> Also, what standard C library?

A C99-compliant library will do, although we don't even assume that
100%.

> > Is there some specific question that you are interested in, or a
> > specific platform?  And also, what version of Emacs are we talking
> > about?  Versions before 27 could have problems in the dumping process.
> 
> It is a question mostly out of curiosity. But there have been talks
> recently of working on improvements to the build process, and I am
> trying to understand what systems Emacs is targeting, what systems the
> build process needs to support, and on which systems Emacs is tested.

Well, is your curiosity satisfied?

Supported Platforms

[Jared Greenwald]

FYI...

On the list of platforms, Alpha is listed as an unsupported platform.  
I'm not sure about 21.3, but I definately know that 21.2.3 works on 
Alpha running Tru64 V5.1B (with some open source libs - which are 
available at HP).  I am thinking about downloading the latest and trying 
it out on Tru64.  I will let you know if I have success.

Thanks,
Jared

Re: Supported Platforms

[Richard Stallman]

    On the list of platforms, Alpha is listed as an unsupported platform.  
    I'm not sure about 21.3, but I definately know that 21.2.3 works on 
    Alpha running Tru64 V5.1B (with some open source libs - which are 
    available at HP).

Libraries which are open source may or may not be free software; also,
even if they are free software, their licenses may or may not be
compatible with the GPL.  Could you please show me the precise
licenses of the necessary libraries?  (The names would be useful too.)
Once I get that info, I can record the appropriate info about this
configuration.

      I am thinking about downloading the latest and trying 
    it out on Tru64.

Do you mean Emacs 21.3, or the current development version?
It would be useful to test either one, or both of them separately.

Re: Supported Platforms

[Jared Greenwald]

Richard Stallman wrote:

>    On the list of platforms, Alpha is listed as an unsupported platform.  
>    I'm not sure about 21.3, but I definately know that 21.2.3 works on 
>    Alpha running Tru64 V5.1B (with some open source libs - which are 
>    available at HP).
>
>Libraries which are open source may or may not be free software; also,
>even if they are free software, their licenses may or may not be
>compatible with the GPL.  Could you please show me the precise
>licenses of the necessary libraries?  (The names would be useful too.)
>Once I get that info, I can record the appropriate info about this
>configuration.
>
This is an excellent question.  I has been a while since I did 
configured my Alpha box, so I'm not 100% sure I rememeber everything on 
there.  I do remember checking out the open source software distribution 
that was put out with the V5.1B release, so I'm not quite sure how much 
I had to install to get emacs to compile.  I'll look into it and get 
back to you.

>      I am thinking about downloading the latest and trying 
>    it out on Tru64.
>
>Do you mean Emacs 21.3, or the current development version?
>It would be useful to test either one, or both of them separately.
>
I'll try 21.3 first.

-Jared