[haiku-development] Re: questions about ports an gcc4 (may be irrelevant)

  • From: "scott mc" <scottmc2@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:59:27 -0800

On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 2:38 PM, Skar Cat <skarmiglione.sk4r@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> i have a few curiosities
> 1. what can i do to get work blender in haiku os, compiling svn source.

Blender has many dependencies.  It was ported to BeOS, so the chances
we'll get it ported to Haiku are good.  To get it ported though will
take someone to sit down and get that list of dependencies together
and then we can start working on those.  Once those are all in place
then further work can be done on the blender code to get it to
compile, and once it's compiling it may need to be debugged to make
sure it's working correctly.
The same goes for a few other projects that were once working on BeOS
but are having issues on Haiku.  One that comes to mind is AbiWord.
Probably in the next few weeks here I'll open up a new milestone (or
more) to cover some of these.  For now I'm focused on closing out a
couple of the open HaikuPorts milestones.  If you are interested in
ports for Haiku, then sign up for the mailing list(s) over there and
we can continue the discussions.

> 2. why does not exist gcc 4 for haiku, i dont understand the conflicts in
> the compilers and haiku os, what are hibryds haiku? how?.

The goal for Haiku R1 is to be binary compatible with BeOS R5, this
requires that we use gcc2.95.3.  There's a plan to create a hybrid
system that can make use of gcc4, check the archives of this mailing
list for further discussion on that subject.

> 3. Irrlicht may be can work on Haiku os?

I just added a portlog entry for irrlicht, whether or not it gets
ported depends on many things...
http://ports.haiku-files.org/wiki/dev-games/irrlicht

> 4. what dificulties are to port a program ?

There can be lots of difficulties with porting a program.  Sometimes
they go easy, other times it could take months, some will just have
too many issues and no one with follow up on a porting attempt.  To
get some porting tips you can read more about them on HaikuPorts.
There's also been a whole book written on the subject by Martin Brown,
several years ago:
http://www.amazon.com/Beos-Porting-Applications-Martin-Brown/dp/1558605320
The book may be dated, but much of the material in the book still
applies.  I picked up a copy from an Amazon used book seller for under
$20 a few years ago.

It really helps to know C and C++ though.  So you may want to pick up
a book and work on that, or do like many others have done and take a
college course or two, you might find you like it and continue on and
get a degree even...
Having knowledge of the compiling process will come in handy though
when working on ports...

-scottmc

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