Configuring autoconf2.69 and wget 1.12 fail

[gadi]

I try to build Autoconf and Wget on Windows Xp platform through Cygwin, but when I run the configure script for both packages, errors occur of the same bug:
./configure
configure: configuring for GNU Wget 1.12
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /usr/bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking build system type... configure: error: cannot guess build type; you must specify one
And I when I type ./configure --build=i686-pc-cygwin on the Cygwin console produce errors:
./configure --build=i686-pc-cygwin
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /usr/bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking build system type...
configure: error: invalid value of canonical build

Please, what should I do to configure scripts?
Thank you

[psycho]

Hi Gadi.

Windows XP?! Instead of struggling with a layer of Linux-like tools on an ancient, unsupported, vulnerable version of Windows, why not just install the real thing, and build the software on Linux like it's meant to be built? You'll have fewer build issues, a modern secure and supported OS...is there any reason you need to be building those tools on XP rather than Linux?

I don't know what's causing your issue there: both ./configure and ./configure --build=i686-pc-cygwin work fine here (on Gentoo Linux) for current versions of autoconf and wget. I don't see the point in solving it though, just to build stuff on Cygwin on a dead OS. Unless there's some reason you really need to be doing this on XP, why not replace it with a modern OS? You'll have a much better time on Linux.

[GDH-gentoo]

With respect to the error messages:

./configure
configure: configuring for GNU Wget 1.12
[...]
checking build system type... configure: error: cannot guess build type; you must specify one
[...]
./configure --build=i686-pc-cygwin
[...]
configure: error: invalid value of canonical build

What seems to be failing here is execution of the config.guess and config.sub scripts shipped with source archive of Wget 1.12 on your Cygwin environment. On my Gentoo system they work:

Code: Select all

$ /bin/sh build-aux/config.guess && echo OK
x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
OK

$ /bin/sh build-aux/config.sub i686-pc-cygwin && echo OK
i686-pc-cygwin
OK

[gadi]

Hi Gadi.

Windows XP?! Instead of struggling with a layer of Linux-like tools on an ancient, unsupported, vulnerable version of Windows, why not just install the real thing, and build the software on Linux like it's meant to be built? You'll have fewer build issues, a modern secure and supported OS...is there any reason you need to be building those tools on XP rather than Linux?

I don't know what's causing your issue there: both ./configure and ./configure --build=i686-pc-cygwin work fine here (on Gentoo Linux) for current versions of autoconf and wget. I don't see the point in solving it though, just to build stuff on Cygwin on a dead OS. Unless there's some reason you really need to be doing this on XP, why not replace it with a modern OS? You'll have a much better time on Linux.

Hi psycho,
You are right, and I know that Windows Xp is no longer supported. Currently, installing linux in my Laptop is not allowed because I do not have enough space to build it with Windows, and I am trying to learn more about linux platform through Cygwin. I have been done many searches on google to overcome the issue but no success. Please how can I specify a '--build= ' command to cross invalid value of canonical build from configure.ac file??

[gadi]

With respect to the error messages:

./configure
configure: configuring for GNU Wget 1.12
[...]
checking build system type... configure: error: cannot guess build type; you must specify one
[...]
./configure --build=i686-pc-cygwin
[...]
configure: error: invalid value of canonical build

What seems to be failing here is execution of the config.guess and config.sub scripts shipped with source archive of Wget 1.12 on your Cygwin environment. On my Gentoo system they work:

Code: Select all

$ /bin/sh build-aux/config.guess && echo OK
x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
OK

$ /bin/sh build-aux/config.sub i686-pc-cygwin && echo OK
i686-pc-cygwin
OK

Hi GDH-gentoo,
How can I resolve this?? When I type ./config.guess, I get:

./config.guess && echo ok
i686-pc-cygwin
ok


and for config.sub

$ ./config.sub i686-pc-cygwin && echo ok
i686-pc-cygwin
ok

[psycho]

Currently, installing linux in my Laptop is not allowed because I do not have enough space to build it with Windows

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Official disk space requirements for Windows XP were around 1.5GB: there are Linux distributions like Damn Small Linux that fit into a tiny fraction of that (DSL takes up around 50MB of disk space, so even if your hard disk is a ridiculously small 2GB that could barely fit Windows XP onto it, DSL would use up less than 5% of your hard disk and leave you with much more room than XP).

If you mean that you don't have room to dual-boot, and are worried that you'll regret it if you format your hard disk and get rid of XP, just run Linux as a "live CD" environment off a USB: everything works painfully slowly in comparison with a real (hard disk) install, but apart from that it basically allows you to test-drive Linux on your laptop and gain familiarity with it without actually installing it. The live Linux desktop will be able to access your XP drive, so you can experiment with the data on your hard disk (ensuring Linux applications will be able to work with it, etc.) without actually installing Linux. I remember using Cygwin years ago at a Windows-only workplace to do some text (HTML) processing using (scripts that used) GNU tools: it's better than nothing, but it won't teach you as much about a Linux OS as an actual Linux OS.

There are lots of distributions to choose from, depending on your hardware. Gentoo is objectively the best of them but not a good choice for a first distro if you're coming from Windows...plus you'll need a lot more than 2GB to build (maybe not to run once it's built, but certainly to build) a usable Gentoo system. If you have at least 20GB of disk space you could try something like Mint XFCE or Lubuntu for an easy everything-works-immediately desktop experience...and then perhaps build yourself a nice custom Gentoo system once you've developed a sense of what the (very many...far more than on XP) options are and what you'd actually like to build for yourself. Otherwise, if your disk's so tiny it could barely cope with XP, you could install a tiny distro like Puppy: it'll still be better than XP. Nearly any Linux distro at all, even something microscopic like DSL, is going to be more secure than XP and will give you more access to modern software. Also, any Linux distro is going to be better for learning about the Linux platform than running Cygwin on top of Windows.

[gadi]

Currently, installing linux in my Laptop is not allowed because I do not have enough space to build it with Windows

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Official disk space requirements for Windows XP were around 1.5GB: there are Linux distributions like Damn Small Linux that fit into a tiny fraction of that (DSL takes up around 50MB of disk space, so even if your hard disk is a ridiculously small 2GB that could barely fit Windows XP onto it, DSL would use up less than 5% of your hard disk and leave you with much more room than XP).

If you mean that you don't have room to dual-boot, and are worried that you'll regret it if you format your hard disk and get rid of XP, just run Linux as a "live CD" environment off a USB: everything works painfully slowly in comparison with a real (hard disk) install, but apart from that it basically allows you to test-drive Linux on your laptop and gain familiarity with it without actually installing it. The live Linux desktop will be able to access your XP drive, so you can experiment with the data on your hard disk (ensuring Linux applications will be able to work with it, etc.) without actually installing Linux. I remember using Cygwin years ago at a Windows-only workplace to do some text (HTML) processing using (scripts that used) GNU tools: it's better than nothing, but it won't teach you as much about a Linux OS as an actual Linux OS.

There are lots of distributions to choose from, depending on your hardware. Gentoo is objectively the best of them but not a good choice for a first distro if you're coming from Windows...plus you'll need a lot more than 2GB to build (maybe not to run once it's built, but certainly to build) a usable Gentoo system. If you have at least 20GB of disk space you could try something like Mint XFCE or Lubuntu for an easy everything-works-immediately desktop experience...and then perhaps build yourself a nice custom Gentoo system once you've developed a sense of what the (very many...far more than on XP) options are and what you'd actually like to build for yourself. Otherwise, if your disk's so tiny it could barely cope with XP, you could install a tiny distro like Puppy: it'll still be better than XP. Nearly any Linux distro at all, even something microscopic like DSL, is going to be more secure than XP and will give you more access to modern software. Also, any Linux distro is going to be better for learning about the Linux platform than running Cygwin on top of Windows.

Hi psycho,
Thank you for your precious advices, I will come back to you for certain assets about Linux platform