Report on running makeinfo test suite on a Solaris 10 installation

[Gavin Smith]

Here are my experiences trying to get the test suite for makeinfo to
run on a Solaris 11 system, provided by OpenCSW (www.opencsw.org).
Although there is an automatic build
(https://buildfarm.opencsw.org/buildbot/waterfall?category=texinfo),
in fact the tests for makeinfo (in the tp/t subdirectory) are all
skipped, because these tests need a couple of extra modules.

Dagobert copied into this email in case other people testing on your
systems do similar things.

Maybe it will make the experience quicker for people doing similar things.

First I attempted to install the missing modules with the "cpan"
shell. It took a bit of setting up. I went through an interactive
configuration, but I chose the default option about connecting to the
internet when no CPAN mirrors had been listed ("no"), and then it
asked me for the URL of my CPAN mirror. I managed to revert this
option by editing ~/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm, and then it asked me for a
choice of CPAN mirrors. I believe that the servers are in Germany or
thereabouts so I chose various European countries. See bottom of email
for the eventual configuration.

I managed to get Data::Compare and Test::Deep installed (Test::More
was installed already), but every time I tried running a test I got an
error about an uninstalled module. For example, File::Glob. Trying to
install this module via CPAN was nearly impossible. It kept on failing
because the Solaris tar can't open *.tar.bz2 files. Eventually I had
the bright idea to override the tar program in "cpan"s config, and
used "gtar" (GNU tar) instead. That managed to build, but it refused
to install because it said the package was up-to-date. At this time I
didn't know why it was saying that, because I couldn't find the
package files anywhere. I believe the "force" modifier forced an
installation, but then I had the same message about another module I
was trying to install (Number::Compare), that it was already
installed.

Round about this point I realised that there might be another Perl
installation on the system. The tests were running using
/usr/bin/perl, but cpan was under /opt/csw/bin/cpan. That's why it was
saying that File::Glob and the like were already installed. When I
reorganized the PATH to put /opt/csw/bin first, I had much better
results. I had a confusing build error message about a *.Plo or *.Tpo
file not existing, which turned out to require me to run "autoreconf
--install" (just running "autoreconf" wasn't good enough), to replace
some Libtool files. With that, "make check" in the "tp/" directory got
through with just a single failure, which I haven't investigated yet.

I still haven't run the test suite in full with the Solaris 10 Perl:

This is perl, v5.8.4 built for i86pc-solaris-64int
(with 37 registered patches, see perl -V for more detail)

It might be possible by installing more modules through CPAN the way I
did for the others, and using "force install Number::Compare" to
install them under my home directory. It might not work because of
incompatibilities between Perl versions.

However, a couple of tests I did manually using this Perl did work,
for example building texinfo.info, and that was using the XS module as
well, so that is promising.

Contents of MyConfig.pm:

$CPAN::Config = {
  'applypatch' => q[],
  'auto_commit' => q[1],
  'build_cache' => q[100],
  'build_dir' => q[/home/gavin/.cpan/build],
  'build_dir_reuse' => q[1],
  'build_requires_install_policy' => q[no],
  'bzip2' => q[/usr/bin/bzip2],
  'cache_metadata' => q[1],
  'check_sigs' => q[0],
  'commandnumber_in_prompt' => q[0],
  'connect_to_internet_ok' => q[1],
  'cpan_home' => q[/home/gavin/.cpan],
  'curl' => q[/opt/csw/bin/curl],
  'ftp' => q[/usr/bin/ftp],
  'ftp_passive' => q[1],
  'ftp_proxy' => q[],
  'getcwd' => q[cwd],
  'gpg' => q[/opt/csw/bin/gpg],
  'gzip' => q[/usr/bin/gzip],
  'halt_on_failure' => q[0],
  'histfile' => q[/home/gavin/.cpan/histfile],
  'histsize' => q[100],
  'http_proxy' => q[],
  'inactivity_timeout' => q[0],
  'index_expire' => q[1],
  'inhibit_startup_message' => q[0],
  'keep_source_where' => q[/home/gavin/.cpan/sources],
  'load_module_verbosity' => q[v],
  'lynx' => q[/opt/csw/bin/lynx],
  'make' => q[/usr/ccs/bin/make],
  'make_arg' => q[],
  'make_install_arg' => q[],
  'make_install_make_command' => q[/usr/ccs/bin/make],
  'makepl_arg' => q[PREFIX=/home/gavin/local],
  'mbuild_arg' => q[],
  'mbuild_install_arg' => q[],
  'mbuild_install_build_command' => q[./Build],
  'mbuildpl_arg' => q[--install_base /home/gavin/local],
  'ncftpget' => q[/opt/csw/bin/ncftpget],
  'no_proxy' => q[],
  'pager' => q[less],
  'patch' => q[/usr/bin/patch],
  'perl5lib_verbosity' => q[v],
  'prefer_installer' => q[MB],
  'prefs_dir' => q[/home/gavin/.cpan/prefs],
  'prerequisites_policy' => q[follow],
  'scan_cache' => q[atstart],
  'shell' => q[/opt/csw/bin/bash],
  'show_unparsable_versions' => q[0],
  'show_upload_date' => q[0],
  'show_zero_versions' => q[0],
  'tar' => q[/opt/csw/bin/gtar],
  'tar_verbosity' => q[v],
  'term_is_latin' => q[1],
  'term_ornaments' => q[1],
  'test_report' => q[0],
  'trust_test_report_history' => q[1],
  'unzip' => q[/usr/bin/unzip],
  'urllist' => [q[ftp://artfiles.org/cpan.org/],
q[ftp://cpan.mirror.iphh.net/pub/CPAN/],
q[ftp://ftp.freenet.de/pub/ftp.cpan.org/pub/CPAN/],
q[ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/unix/languages/perl/],
q[ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/],
q[ftp://ftp.hawo.stw.uni-erlangen.de/CPAN/],
q[ftp://ftp.hosteurope.de/pub/CPAN/],
q[ftp://ftp.mpi-inf.mpg.de/pub/perl/CPAN/],
q[ftp://ftp.u-tx.net/CPAN/], q[ftp://mirror.23media.de/cpan/],
q[ftp://mirror.checkdomain.de/CPAN/],
q[ftp://mirror.de.leaseweb.net/CPAN/],
q[ftp://mirror.euserv.net/cpan/], q[ftp://mirror.fraunhofer.de/CPAN/],
q[ftp://mirror.netcologne.de/cpan/],
q[ftp://mirror.petamem.com/CPAN/], q[http://cpan.noris.de/],
q[http://dl.ambiweb.de/mirrors/ftp.cpan.org/],
q[http://ftp-stud.hs-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/CPAN/],
q[http://mirror.bibleonline.ru/cpan/],
q[http://mirror.softaculous.com/cpan/],
q[http://mirror.unicorncloud.org/CPAN/],
q[http://mirrors.zerg.biz/cpan/],
q[http://www.planet-elektronik.de/CPAN/],
q[ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/pub/CPAN/],
q[ftp://mirror.easyname.at/cpan/]],
  'use_sqlite' => q[0],
  'wget' => q[/opt/csw/bin/wget],
  'yaml_load_code' => q[0],
  'yaml_module' => q[YAML],
};
1;
__END__