Hi,
when running configure, lots of somewhat important messages scroll by, like "silently disabling something you need" :-) ./configure --with-whatever-options | grep WARN
;-)
Yes, I can do that. I even dare say that I can spot WARNINGs while the scroll buffer runs by, and thus instantly see what's going wrong (at least on my slow-spec'd VMs). But newcomers aren't that trained yet. You shouldn't have to tell them "every other Linux project does "configure", but you have to "configure | grep WARN" - it's odd if you're not used to it.
there are other packages that print out stuff at the end about what features are not enabled etc - but , being on those mailing lists too, noone reads that output....even if you put a whacking great big dragon in it ;-)
Exactly these projects were the role model I had in mind. Granted, some people will even overlook the necessary information if it is in <blink>RED</blink>. But a summary at the end at least raises chances of problems being flagged by the person running configure. Interesting discussion elsewhere in the thread... a proper solution to the problem would indeed be that the recursiveness of configure goes away. Much better than running a whacky script, of course! Greetings, Stefan -- Stefan WINTER Ingenieur de Recherche Fondation RESTENA - Réseau Téléinformatique de l'Education Nationale et de la Recherche 6, rue Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi L-1359 Luxembourg Tel: +352 424409 1 Fax: +352 422473