Re: 7.2 branch, configure problem, --with-python

[Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauerman@br.ibm.com>]

On Mon, 2010-07-26 at 16:45 -0700, Michael Snyder wrote:
> Hey folks, I'm having a problem attempting to build the release branch
> on a 32 bit RHEL5 system.  I've used "--with-python=xyz" to point to a
> local install directory, but configure tells me it wasn't found.
> 
> The exact same configuration worked fine in version 7.1.
> 
> This is my configure command:
> CFLAGS=-g \
> LDFLAGS="-Wl,-R/build/toolchain/lin32/ncurses-5.5/lib 
> -Wl,-R/build/toolchain/lin32/expat-1.95.8/lib 
> -Wl,-R/build/toolchain/lin32/python-2.5/lib 
> -Wl,-R/build/toolchain/lin32/zlib-1.2.3-3/lib \
> $(srcdir)/configure --with-python=/build/toolchain/lin32/python-2.5
> 
> ... and this is the error message:
> 
> checking for python2.5... no
> configure: error: no usable python found at 
> /build/toolchain/lin32/python-2.5
> make[1]: *** [configure-gdb] Error 1

You're getting lots of "undefined reference to `__ctype_b'" errors when
statically linking with libpython2.5.a. I've never seen such error
myself, but it looks like that it is related to using old versions of
glibc (like version 2.3 or so). E.g., see:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-glibc/2002/10/msg00340.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-glibc/2002/10/msg00093.html

configure is trying to compile a trivial Python application using:

gcc -o conftest -g -DVMWARE_VMKGDB
-I/build/toolchain/lin32/python-2.5/include
-I/build/toolchain/lin32/python-2.5/include
-Wl,-R/build/toolchain/lin32/ncurses-5.5/lib
-Wl,-R/build/toolchain/lin32/expat-1.95.8/lib
-Wl,-R/build/toolchain/lin32/python-2.5/lib
-Wl,-R/build/toolchain/lin32/zlib-1.2.3-3/lib conftest.c -lncurses -lz
-lm    -L/build/toolchain/lin32/python-2.5/lib/python2.5/config
-lpthread -ldl -lutil -lm -lpython2.5 >&5

Which (apart from the -Wl,-R options) look harmless to me.
My initial impression is that there's something fishy with your
libpython2.5.a. I don't know why GDB 7.1 and GDB 7.2 would differ here.
-- 
[]'s
Thiago Jung Bauermann
IBM Linux Technology Center