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http://web.archive.org/web/20050204161816/http://www.linuxforums.org/news/article-31869.html
Book Review: Managing Projects With GNU Make -- 3rd Edition Posted by lakerdonald at Thu Jan 20, 2005 12:28 am Managing Projects with GNU Make -- 3rd Edition Robert Mecklenburg O'REILLY Media Inc. ISBN 0-596-00610-1 Acknowledgments I'd like to thank O'REILLY Media for cheerfully providing a copy of GNU Make for my review. Overview There are many utilities available to help aid in the organization and compilation of source files into a full, finished executable. GNU Make is one of the more popular flavors of the most common of these utilities, Make. Make is available for a myriad of Operating Systems, including Windows, Unix, and, of course, Linux, where GNU Make is the standard. This extensive book covers the effective creation of Makefiles, the configuration files used by Make to tell what to do with which files. The way this book is laid out was a refreshing change for me. Unlike most books, which waste a chapter (sometimes two) just telling you what they are going to tell you, Managing Projects with GNU Make dives right in with a sample Makefile in the first chapter. The rest of the chapters then add on progressive levels of detail, with the introduction of more advanced features, such as macros, and finishes off with a few fullblown Makefiles, including the Makefile for GNU Make itself. Content The content of this book can be described with two words: rock solid. This means it's a book filled to the brim with useful information. This is what sets Managing Projects With GNU Make apart from other computer books and reference manuals. There are plenty of tomes of information out there, but much of the content is extraneous and esoteric. GNU Make is relevant, concise, and to the point. Robert Mecklenburg did a very nice job in writing this book as well. I actually read through the first half of this book away from the computer. The quality is that of a novel meant to be read for pleasure. When I did get access to a computer to try what I had learned, it was amazing. This stuff really worked; and worked well, too. The Book Itself As boring as technical reference books, manuals and the like can be, GNU Make tries to spread out the tables, figures and other points of reference among well thought out explanations. You don't have to be a computer techie to read this book, but unfortunately, with a subject such as the 'make' utility, you have to be rather technically inclined to appreciate it. Managing Projects With GNU Make covers a very wide variety of topics, running the full gamut of platforms, architectures, and languages. The task of writing the third edition would not have been one to be taken lightly. GNU Make not only spans all of these areas, it does them in a orderly, logical manner which helps GNU Make serve as a nice reference guide, as well as something to read from cover to cover. With such a broad area to cover, it would be easy for an author to either get lazy and just skim them over, or try to give each one a chapter of its own. Instead, Robert Mecklenburg covered the minutiae within the language independent sections and gave the major programming languages chapters of their own in Part II, which includes other specialized topics (the three languages Java, C, and C++ were divided into two chapters, Java and C/C++). Pros -Concise and to the point -Interesting -Well written -Accurate information -Interesting insight from the author's personal experiences -Not bogged down in minutiae Cons It was really hard to find much negative to say about it, however I had two major gripes: -It needed a more thorough proofing/editing (there were several typos, which is a pet peeve of mine) -The suggested retail price of $29.95 is a bit high for a book under 200 pages. The Bottom Line I give Managing Projects With GNU Make four and a half penguins out of five. If it weren't for the typographical errors, GNU Make would have been perfect. --Andy Kissner
3. Portage FeaturesContent:3.a. Portage Features Portage has several additional features that makes your Gentoo experience even better. Many of these features rely on certain software tools that improve performance, reliability, security, ... To enable or disable certain Portage features you need to edit /etc/make.conf's FEATURES variable which contains the various feature keywords, separated by white space. In several cases you will also need to install the additional tool on which the feature relies. Not all features that Portage supports are listed here. For a full overview, please consult the make.conf man page:
To find out what FEATURES are default set, run emerge --info and search for the FEATURES variable or grep it out:
3.b. Distributed Compiling Using distcc distcc is a program to distribute compilations across several, not necessarily identical, machines on a network. The distcc client sends all necessary information to the available distcc servers (running distccd) so they can compile pieces of source code for the client. The net result is a faster compilation time. You can find more information about distcc (and how to have it work with Gentoo) in our Gentoo Distcc Documentation. Installing distcc Distcc ships with a graphical monitor to monitor tasks that your computer is sending away for compilation. If you use Gnome then put 'gnome' in your USE variable. However, if you don't use Gnome and would still like to have the monitor then you should put 'gtk' in your USE variable.
Activating Portage Support Add distcc to the FEATURES variable inside /etc/make.conf. Next, edit the MAKEOPTS variable to your liking. A known guideline is to fill in "-jX" with X the number of CPUs that run distccd (including the current host) plus one, but you might have better results with other numbers. Now run distcc-config and enter the list of available distcc servers. For a simple example we assume that the available DistCC servers are 192.168.1.102 (the current host), 192.168.1.103 and 192.168.1.104 (two "remote" hosts):
Don't forget to run the distccd daemon as well:
3.c. Caching Compilation About ccache ccache is a fast compiler cache. When you compile a program, it will cache intermediate results so that, whenever you recompile the same program, the compilation time is greatly reduced. In common compilations this can result in 5 to 10 times faster compilation times. If you are interested in the ins and outs of ccache, please visit the ccache homepage. Installing ccache To install ccache, run emerge ccache:
Activating Portage Support Open /etc/make.conf and add ccache to the FEATURES variable. Next, add a new variable called CCACHE_SIZE and set it to "2G":
To check if ccache functions, ask ccache to provide you with its statistics. Because Portage uses a different ccache home directory, you need to set the CCACHE_DIR variable as well:
The /var/tmp/ccache location is Portage' default ccache home directory; if you want to alter this setting you can set the CCACHE_DIR variable in /etc/make.conf. However, if you would run ccache, it would use the default location of ${HOME}/.ccache, which is why you needed to set the CCACHE_DIR variable when asking for the (Portage) ccache statistics. Using ccache for non-Portage C Compiling If you would like to use ccache for non-Portage compilations, add /usr/lib/ccache/bin to the beginning of your PATH variable (before /usr/bin). This can be accomplished by editing .bash_profile in your user's home directory. Using .bash_profile is one way to define PATH variables.
3.d. Binary Package Support Creating Prebuilt Packages Portage supports the installation of prebuilt packages. Even though Gentoo does not provide prebuilt packages by itself (except for the GRP snapshots) Portage can be made fully aware of prebuilt packages. To create a prebuilt package you can use quickpkg if the package is already installed on your system, or emerge with the --buildpkg or --buildpkgonly options. If you want Portage to create prebuilt packages of every single package you install, add buildpkg to the FEATURES variable. More extended support for creating prebuilt package sets can be obtained with catalyst. For more information on catalyst please read the Catalyst Reference Manual and Catalyst Frequently Asked Questions. Installing Prebuilt Packages Although Gentoo doesn't provide one, you can create a central repository where you store prebuilt packages. If you want to use this repository, you need to make Portage aware of it by having the PORTAGE_BINHOST variable point to it. For instance, if the prebuilt packages are on ftp://buildhost/gentoo:
When you want to install a prebuilt package, add the --getbinpkg option to the emerge command alongside of the --usepkg option. The former tells emerge to download the prebuilt package from the previously defined server while the latter asks emerge to try to install the prebuilt package first before fetching the sources and compiling it. For instance, to install gnumeric with prebuilt packages:
More information about emerge's prebuilt package options can be found in the emerge man page:
3.e. Fetching Files Parallel fetch When you are emerging a series of packages, Portage can fetch the source files for the next package in the list even while it is compiling another package, thus shortening compile times. To make use of this capability, add "parallel-fetch" to your FEATURES. Userfetch When Portage is run as root, FEATURES="userfetch" will allow Portage to drop root privileges while fetching package sources. This is a small security improvement. [ << ] [ < ] [ Home ] [ > ] [ >> ] Gentoo Developer HandbookContent:
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