The challenges of compiling non working Open Source?

One of the great benefits of Open Source, it’s Free, and you can get great support, sometimes even from the developers directly (rather then 5 levels of paid customer support for a commercial product). One of the greatest banes of Open Source, if you have a problem, and nobody has experienced and documented in a forum etc the problem you have with the same OS, libraries etc, you could be totally up the creek without a paddle, boat and for that matter water. (luckily you still have oxgyen)

Well, I’m having this problem with MySQL Workbench. A product promising so much, but if you can’t get the binary working on Linux to even start, where do you go.

You will see via the Forums, I’m not the only person. This is the current Bugs List.

Wanting to make a difference, even just for myself, and those others that also seem lost, I set out to pursue this to the bitter end. Long story short, some 6-7 hrs later I’m so close, and the response in a related Bug at the point I’ve now finally reached is:

at this moment we do not process bugs of mysql workbench, because it’s still in the intensive development, and we provided snapshot in order to give people first implression of WB.
I am changing status to ‘Analyzing’ and return to this bugreport when WB will be issued officially.

Well, my only statement here at 11:30pm at night, is I’m annoyed and frustated. The only reason why I’m compiling source is the snapshot doesn’t work, there is no information of when it will be issued officially, infact as I’ve mentioned previously, there are 3 different versions for 3 different OS’s at present. (More Info in Forums). It’s complicated as it seems to be all one way communication, people reporting problems, but no information feedback in return. Perhaps I should have worked on my own Open Source project?

My simple question in response to this comment is. “Please provide the source that built the binary, so at least we can work with the same apples. The released source and snapshot binary are not consistent.”

My only pursuit now is to publish my findings. I’m made signficant progress that will help others, but only so far. I’ve also uncovered 3 configuration errors, and library inconsistency as per minimum requirements (which isn’t documented, it’s hit and miss, trial and error), and a fatal compilation error stopping you in your tracks. My current logged bug report of this Bug #16604

The road already covered

My environment is CentOS 4.2 (a.k.a RedHat Enterprise Linux RHEL 4.2) recompiled and free.

The first pot hole.

Downloaded Linux Binary 1.0.0-alpha from ftp://ftp.mysql.com/pub/mysql/download/mysql-workbench-1.0.0-alpha-linux-i386.tar.gz (announced on forums MySQL Workbench 1.0.0alpha for Linux (November 24, 2005)

Errors on startup.
./mysql-workbench-bin: /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.5' not found (required by ./mysql-workbench-bin) ./mysql-workbench-bin: /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.4' not found (required by ./mysql-workbench-bin)

Refer to my Initial findings published at forums (December 16, 2005) over 1 month ago with details of my environment and installed libraries.

Looking at the hole, now it’s a trench.

Diving right in.
$ su - $ cd /src $ wget ftp://ftp.mysql.com/pub/mysql/download/mysql-workbench-1.0.0-alpha-linux.tar.gz $ tar xvfz mysql-workbench-1.0.0-alpha-linux.tar.gz $ cd /src/mysql-workbench-1.0.0/mysql-gui-common $ ./configure

Errors
No package ‘gtkmm-2.4′ found
configure: error: Library requirements (libglade-2.0 gtkmm-2.4) not met; consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if your libraries are in a nonstandard prefix so pkg-config can find them.
Found http://www.gtkmm.org – gtkmm is the official C++ interface for the popular GUI library GTK+. First problem, current version is 2.8, previous version (as on home page links is 2.2).

More digging, clicking the home page documentation link, and some docs recommend binary installs (why am I not surprised). gtkmm 2.4 documentation. What the! The home page has 2.8 and 2.2, and the docs are 2.4. I’m a little confused, but I trundle on.

Found http://www.gtkmm.orgNo RHEL binaries, tried for Fedora Core 4. Attempt to Add FC4 extras to yum settings and do yum install gtkmm24-docs failed. (this was the docs recommendation)

So track it down on a mirror. Now that is now gtkmm24 Version 2.6???? I’m sure there’s a reason but I’m a GTK lay person and it’s confusing me.

$ wget http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/fedora/linux/extras/4/i386/gtkmm24-2.6.2-2.i386.rpm $ wget http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/fedora/linux/extras/4/i386/gtkmm24-devel-2.6.2-2.i386.rpm $ wget http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/fedora/linux/extras/4/i386/gtkmm24-docs-2.6.2-2.i386.rpm

$ rpm -ivh gtkmm24-2.6.2-2.i386.rpm warning: gtkmm24-2.6.2-2.i386.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 1ac70ce6 error: Failed dependencies: libglibmm-2.4.so.1 is needed by gtkmm24-2.6.2-2.i386 libsigc-2.0.so.0 is needed by gtkmm24-2.6.2-2.i386 libstdc++.so.6(GLIBCXX_3.4.4) is needed by gtkmm24-2.6.2-2.i386

I figured it wasn’t going to be that easy. However, found an interesting note, (GLIBCXX_3.4.4), hmmm, see that error before. Is that sunlight I see looking up out of the trench.

It doesn’t ran it pours.

Won’t focus here.

libsigc Not found in CentOS RPMS Found at http://libsigc.sourceforge.net
$ cd /src $ wget http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/libsigc++/2.0/libsigc++-2.0.17.tar.gz $ tar xvfz libsigc++-2.0.17.tar.gz $ cd /src/libsigc++-2.0.17 $ ./configure $ make $ make install $ rpm -ivh gtkmm24-2.6.2-2.i386.rpm

Still fails with same dependancies including libsigc-2.0.so.0 which is what I just compiled.

Using a trench digger now, shovelling was too much work.

I won’t bore you with the iterative details of my approach, needless to say, basically I had to work backwards from this resultant coding, a number of times. But this worked. (Compiling the dependancies that is)

$ cd /src $ wget http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/libsigc++/2.0/libsigc++-2.0.17.tar.gz $ tar xvfz libsigc++-2.0.17.tar.gz $ cd /src/libsigc++-2.0.17 $ ./configure --prefix=/usr $ make $ make install

One Down, note the –prefix=/usr is significant.. There must be some funky way to use LD_LIBRARY_PATH, LIBDIR, just need somebody to explain why simple evironment variable doesn’t work downstream.

# configure: error: Package requirements (sigc++-2.0 >= 2.0.0 glib-2.0 >= 2.4.0 gobject-2.0 >= 2.4.0 gmodule-2.0 >= 2.4.0) were not met. $ cd /src $ wget http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/glibmm/2.4/glibmm-2.4.8.tar.gz $ tar xvfz glibmm-2.4.8.tar.gz $ cd /src/glibmm-2.4.8 $ ./configure --prefix=/usr $ make $ make install

Two down.

# Requires checking for glibmm-2.4 >= 2.4.0 atk >= 1.6.0... Package glibmm-2.4 was not found in the pkg-config search path. $ cd /src $ wget http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/gtkmm/2.4/gtkmm-2.4.11.tar.gz $ tar xvfz gtkmm-2.4.11.tar.gz $ cd /src/gtkmm-2.4.11 $ ./configure --prefix=/usr $ make $ make install

Three Down.

$ cd /src/mysql-workbench-1.0.0/mysql-gui-common $ ./configure checking for pcre-config... no configure: error: Could not find pcre-config script. Make sure the pcre libraries are installed

What is pcre-config? Not much luck finding that, try pcre, come across http://www.pcre.org/ – Perl Compatible Regular Expressions. Well could be, no info about pcre-config, nothing on the Perl regular expressions man page. Well, no pain no gain, it’s in a yum list so.

$ yum install pcre

Already installed, well that doesn’t help. Some more digging around, more time digging a bigger hole, there’s a pcre-devel, let’s try that.

$ yum install pcre-devel

Voila!, I have a pcre-config script

$ cd /src/mysql-workbench-1.0.0/mysql-gui-common $ ./configure

./configure: line 3488: -f: command not found

Are a problem, lucky already documented in Forums (at least somebody has been this far).

Replace Line 3488
if ! -f po ; then
with
if test ! -f po ; then

Try Again.

$ cd /src/mysql-workbench-1.0.0/mysql-gui-common $ ./configure

./configure: line 7368: syntax error near unexpected token `else'

Haven’t see this documented.

Replace Line 7466 (note 2 lines earlier)
if test "${ac_cv_prog_PCRE_LIBS+set}" = set; theN
with
if test "${ac_cv_prog_PCRE_LIBS+set}" = set; then

Try Again.

$ cd /src/mysql-workbench-1.0.0/mysql-gui-common $ ./configure $ make ../../library_util/include/myx_util_functions.h:30:18: pcre.h: No such file or directory

Patience is running short, a find locates file in /usr/include/prce directory.

# I'm now no longer amused with this, I'm not a C developer, but basic code should compile. $ cp cd /usr/include /pcre/* /usr/include $ ./configure $ make MGTableEditor.cc: In constructor `MGTableEditor::MGTableEditor(bool)': MGTableEditor.cc:229: error: 'class Gtk::ComboBoxEntry' has no member named 'get_entry' MGTableEditor.cc:265: error: 'class Gtk::ComboBoxEntry' has no member named 'get_entry'

Well, why am I not surprised. More reading, now into the bowes of GTK. API Docs at http://www.gtkmm.org/docs/gtkmm-2.4/docs/reference/html/classGtk_1_1ComboBoxEntry.html
shows that get_entry is valid for 2.4.

Hmmm, more though, now is that 2.4, or is that 2.6. Well this trench digger just fell into the hole is was digging.

A bigger hammer, now the full blown Hydraulic Excavator

I won’t linger here, been down this path before, however more plumbing was required so it was an iterative process again.
cd /src wget ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/v2.6/glib-2.6.6.tar.gz ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/v2.6/glib-2.6.6.tar.gz cd /src/glib-2.6.6 ./configure --prefix=/usr

# checking for sigc++-2.0 >= 2.0.0 glib-2.0 >= 2.6.0 gobject-2.0 >= 2.6.0 gmodule-2.0 >= 2.6.0... Requested 'glib-2.0 >= 2.6.0' but version of GLib is 2.4.7 cd /src wget http://ftp.acc.umu.se/pub/GNOME/sources/glibmm/2.6/glibmm-2.6.1.tar.gz tar xvfz glibmm-2.6.1.tar.gz cd /src/glibmm-2.6.1 ./configure --prefix=/usr make make install

cd /src wget ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/v2.6/atk-1.9.0.tar.bz2 bunzip2 atk-1.9.0.tar.bz2 tar xvf atk-1.9.0.tar cd /src/atk-1.9.0 ./configure --prefix=/usr make make install

cd /src wget ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/v2.6/pango-1.8.2.tar.gz tar xvfz pango-1.8.2.tar.gz cd /src/pango-1.8.2 ./configure --prefix=/usr make make install

# Requested 'pango >= 1.8.0' but version of Pango is 1.6.0 cd /src wget ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/v2.6/gtk+-2.6.9.tar.gz tar xvfz gtk+-2.6.9.tar.gz cd /src/gtk+-2.6.9 ./configure --prefix=/usr make make install

#pango-1.8.2.tar.gz # checking for ATKMM... Requested 'atk >= 1.9.0' but version of Atk is 1.8.0 # checking for GDKMM... Requested 'gtk+-2.0 >= 2.6.0' but version of GTK+ is 2.4.13 cd /src wget http://ftp.acc.umu.se/pub/GNOME/sources/gtkmm/2.6/gtkmm-2.6.5.tar.gz tar xvfz gtkmm-2.6.5.tar.gz cd /src/gtkmm-2.6.5 ./configure --prefix=/usr make make install

Now the test.

$ cd /src/mysql-workbench-1.0.0/mysql-gui-common $ make clean $ ./configure $ make $ make install

WOOOOHOOO! no errors here!

One down, one to go.

$ cd /src/mysql-workbench-1.0.0/mysql-workbench-1.0.0 $ make clean $ ./configure $ make

make[3]: Entering directory `/src/mysql-workbench-1.0.0/mysql-workbench/source/linux' make[3]: *** No rule to make target `../../../mysql-gui-common/source/linux/libwbcommongui.a', needed by `mysql-workbench-bin'. Stop.

Investigation
$ cd /src/mysql-workbench-1.0.0/mysql-workbench/source/linux # (current make directory) $ ls -l ../../../mysql-gui-common/source/linux/lib* -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7410114 Jan 18 22:43 ../../../mysql-gui-common/source/linux/libmacommongui.a -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8006062 Jan 18 22:44 ../../../mysql-gui-common/source/linux/libqbcommongui.a

Similar library name exists, but not libwbcommongui.a Well that’s it, it’s finally now looks not a environement problem, more a software development problem. I’ve logged my findings at Bug #16604. I guess we will wait for a good response.

Was it all worth it! Well 90 mins of documenting, the longest blog I’ll ever write. If the next runner can move this forward to a getting a binary from compilation, that then starts, then it was worth it. But only in a reasonable time.

Comments

murrayc says

January 21, 2006 at 6:49 am

Building from source is for developers. These confusions/difficulties are generally necessary and make sense to developers, but there should be zero expectation that a non-developer could do all this. In fact, you risk ruining your system by trying – You’ve just overwritten the standard stuff in /usr so you RPM database is confused now. The vendor (in this case MySQL, who can be a bit eccentric) should provide/encourage working binaries or installation files, and you should try to contact/pay them if they don’t.

For an example of a company that goes to great lengths to make their installation work perfectly (though it could be even better), see VMWare.

If you want to learn about some development stuff:
> Now that is now gtkmm24 Version 2.6???
That’s because the API is called “gtkmm 2.4″ (the name used in the library name and the pkg-config file and the RPM) and we provide new API/ABI-compatible versions. If we changed the API name every few months then applications would stop working, unnecessarily. Likewise, The current version of the “GTK+ 2.0″ API is GTK+ 2.8. The actual numbers are fairly arbitrary. It’s a thing that developers understand.
Johan says

November 6, 2006 at 4:22 am

You need to build mysql-gui-common first.