os.major etc. on Linux

[Ryan Schmidt]

On May 13, 2016, at 5:52 AM, René J.V. Bertin wrote:

> On Friday May 13 2016 05:00:21 Ryan Schmidt wrote:
> 
>> I'm not giving that any thought. MacPorts is about installing software on OS X. 
> 
> You mean it really should be renamed to OSXPorts? ^^

The "Mac" in MacPorts indicates that it works on the operating system that was at the time known as Mac OS X. It used to be called DarwinPorts, but since we did not have the resources or perhaps the inclination to properly deal with issues some users encountered while using the open-source versions of Darwin known as OpenDarwin and PureDarwin, we renamed the project toe MacPorts to indicate our narrowed focus just on the Apple-provided version of Darwin called Mac OS X. So yes, if you like, you can think of it as OSXPorts, though we have no plans to rename the project again at this time.

> 
>> MacPorts developers and maintainers do not have expertise about installing software on Linux. 
> 
> I have a hunch more of them might resent that statement than you seem to think ...

That was not my intent. Let me rephrase that: MacPorts developers and maintainers are not expected to have expertise about installing software on Linux. Most MacPorts users (in fact, all but you, I would expect) will never use MacPorts on Linux, so any issues reported that are specific to Linux would likely go unfixed.


>> There are other package managers that can be used to install software on Linux.
> 
> I've been finding it very useful to use the same ports to install the same software on my various systems at home. It also makes it a lot easier to test patches on the "main OS" before submitting them to upstream.

I can see how it is useful in your workflow, but it is not our focus.


>> If someone knows how to determine if a Linux machine is 64-bit or 32-bit, yes, that knowledge could be put into that file.
> 
> uname -p (processor) or uname -i (hardware platform) should do the trick (on 64-bit; I don't have a 32-bit system ATM, not even a VM).
> Doesn't Tcl have the equivalent of sizeof(void*) or sizeof(size_t)?

I don't know what system configuration variables Tcl has.