Re: building gcj on OS X (also AWT)

[John Gabriele <john3g at bestweb dot net>]

Thanks for the reply Tom. :)


On May 24, 2004, at 1:06 PM, Tom Tromey wrote:

> > > > > > "John" == John Gabriele <john3g@bestweb.net> writes:
>
> John> Hmm... so, this "GUI Branch" (containing what there is of the
> John> AWT/Swing implementation) is separate from GCJ?
>
> John> I've read that GCJ and Classpath are now working together, so
> John> I'd expect the newest AWT/Swing stuff to come from either the
> John> GCJ site, or else the Classpath site
> John> http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/downloads/downloads.html
> John> ?
>
> The GUI branch is a separate line of development in the cvs repository
> on gcc.gnu.org.  Once a month or so, Graydon merges this branch into
> the main line of development.  Then folks merge this over to
> Classpath.

So, how often then are those newest changes in Classpath merged
into GCJ?

> So, it is definitely part of gcj and it regularly shows up in
> Classpath.  It is done separately just so that the developers working
> on it can follow somewhat relaxed rules for their day-to-day
> development.  E.g., the GUI branch might not build at any given
> moment, since sometimes it is convenient to check in non-working code
> in order to share if more efficiently.  The merges to trunk

(I guess you're referring to the Classpath trunk here.)

>  are always
> done at points where things build and work, though.
>
> John> Is Fedora 2 currently the distro with the most up-to-date
> John> Java/GCJ/AWT/Swing support?
>
> I don't know, since I don't know what all the other distros do.  If
> you want the most up-to-date environment you will have to build your
> own gcj, regardless of distro.
>
> Tom

What would you recommend is the best way for your average Java
person (as opposed to a GCJ hacker) to keep their GCJ-including-
Swing/AWT up to date?

Is it advisable to pull GCJ from CVS whenever a merge from
Classpath is done?  I like the idea of grabbing the latest GCJ
from CVS, because I'm on dialup, and I think a "cvs co" will get
me only the stuff that's changed from what I already have.

I'm guessing that it would be a little too technically demanding
for folks like me to try and pull Classpath from CVS, build it,
and tell GCJ to use *that* instead of whatever it last came with...

A little howto on this would be most useful -- I get the impression
that work is being done on the AWT/Swing stuff fairly rapidly right
now, and it would be nice to have a quick and easy way to grab
those updates regularly.