[bug#27628] [PATCH 3/3] gnu: maxima: Ensure gcc and binutils available at runtime.

[Marius Bakke <mbakke@fastmail.com>]

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Kei Kebreau <kei@openmailbox.org> writes:

> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>
>> Kei Kebreau <kei@openmailbox.org> skribis:
>>
>>> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>>>
>>>> Hi Kei,
>>>>
>>>> Kei Kebreau <kei@openmailbox.org> skribis:
>>>>
>>>>> ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Kei Kebreau <kei@openmailbox.org> skribis:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> + ;; Ensure that Maxima will have access to GCC and its required
>>>>>>> +               ;; components at runtime.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In fact, if it’s an optional feature, it would be better to take GCC &
>>>>>> co. from $PATH, because GCC is a huge dependency.  (Same for the gcl
>>>>>> change.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thoughts?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I started on this patchset because Guix's Maxima cannot graph functions.
>>>>> This feature relies on GCL's 'compile' function. The 'compile' function
>>>>> seems to be a Common Lisp standard since at least the publication of the
>>>>> CLtL2 standard. Maxima assumes (correctly) that this function is present
>>>>> and relies on it for various base functionalities (compiling Maxima math
>>>>> functions to compiled Lisp functions, graphing, etc.).
>>>>
>>>> Good point, ‘compile’ is standard CL.
>>>>
>>>> So yes, that alone is probably a good reason to keep references to GCC
>>>> and Binutils (maybe add a comment explaining this.)  Sorry for holding
>>>> it back!
>>>>
>>>>> I turns out that fixing the underlying issue with GCL removes the need
>>>>> for GCC's presence at runtime, but binutils is still necessary due to
>>>>> Maxima using the 'compile' function from GCL directly. This stems from
>>>>> the GCC package not finding the binutils at runtime, i.e.
>>>>>
>>>>>     guix environment --pure --ad-hoc gcc -- gcc hello-world.c
>>>>>
>>>>> returns
>>>>>
>>>>>     gcc: error trying to exec 'as': execvp: No such file or directory
>>>>>
>>>>> but
>>>>>
>>>>>     guix environment --pure --ad-hoc gcc -- gcc -S hello-world.c
>>>>
>>>> You would need ‘gcc-toolchain’ rather than ‘gcc’ here.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you,
>>>> Ludo’.
>>>
>>> Is gcc-toolchain a package one can use as an input? lisp.scm fails to
>>> load properly when I use the commencement.scm module. Could this be due
>>> to the circular dependency problem mentioned in the "Commentary" section
>>> of commencement.scm?
>>
>> Yeah, rather use gcc/ld-wrapper/glibc as inputs to avoid this problem.
>> ‘gcc-toolchain’ is rather for users.
>
> When I do this, GCL still gives me the
>
>   "gcc: error trying to exec 'as': execvp: No such file or directory"
>
> error if I don't wrap the binary with the binutils $PATH. The same has to
> be done for Maxima. I'm trying to find a way to package GCL in such a
> way that either (1) wrapping the GCL binary is unnecessary or (2)
> wrapping the GCL binary and *only* the GCL binary is necessary for the
> 'compile' function to work.

This is because GCC does not retain an absolute reference to binutils'
'as'. I came across this too in:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2016-11/msg01104.html

If you have some cycles to spare, it could be interesting to try and
use a GCC built with '--with-as=<absolute binutils path>'. E.g.

(define-public gcc-with-as
  (package
    (inherit gcc)
    (arguments
      `(,@(substitute-keyword-arguments (package-arguments grub)
            ((#:configure-flags flags ''())
            `(cons (string-append "--with-as="
                                  (assoc-ref %build-inputs "binutils")
                                  "/bin/as")
                   ,flags)))))))

(define-public gcl
  (package ...
    (native-inputs `(("gcc" ,gcc-with-as)))))

I've been meaning to try this a while, but you know... ;)

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