Subject: Re: bug#66017: Cannot install Ada mode

From: Left Right <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2023 21:56:28 +0200

Hello Stephen, you wrote:

> This indicates you are using a compiler external to Alire, with a newer version
> than the internal one; I only test with Alire internal compilers, for
> consistency.

> Please configure the internal Alire compiler.

> I will add the tested Alire version to the documentation.

I don't know what to do with Alire, but I will try to figure out. But
please consider that anyone trying to install Ada on Linux will
firstly try to go through the process recommended by the distro
maintainers.  In my case, it's a combination of using pacman to
install gcc-ada and AUR (auxiliary packages not directly maintained by
Arch distribution) to install gprbuild, adaxml, alire etc. All I've
done so far to install Ada was to install packages from these sources.
(Unfortunately, both documentation and execution here are lacking, and
the process is quite complicated and error-prone).

It seems like you want me to install what gcc-ada would install, but
through Alire. Am I right? In other words, something that isn't
provided and managed by the Linux distribution I'm using. This seems
like a process that requires a lot more expertise from an average user
(building any GCC compiler is not an easy task). Why is this the
prefered choice of environment?

As for the documentation: it seems we are reading two different
documentations. Is the one you are referring to available online?

I was reading this:
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/ada-mode.html#Installation

specifically:
"Ada mode is part of the standard Emacs distribution; if you use that,
no files need to be installed."

This documentation has no mention of how to build Ada mode, nor
anything about how Ada compiler and toolchain are meant to be set up
etc.

Thank you.

Oleg

On Fri, Sep 15, 2023 at 10:37 PM Gerd Möllmann <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
> Left Right <[email-masked]> writes:
>
> > Hello.
> >
> > I'm trying to install Ada mode in Emacs 29.1 on Manjaro.
> >
> > This is my experience so far:
> >
> > ❯ cd ~/.emacs.d/elpa/ada-mode-8.0.5
> > ❯ ./build.sh
> > alr is /usr/local/bin/alr
> > building ada-mode executables via Alire
> > error: Crate [emacs_ada_mode~8.0.5] does not exist in the catalog.
> > ./build.sh: line 16: cd: emacs_ada_mode_*: No such file or directory
> > error: Cannot continue with invalid session:
> > error:    Could not detect a session folder at current or parent locations
> >
> > When I try searching for this crate:
> >
> > ❯ alr index --update-all
> > Already up to date.
> > ❯ alr search emacs
> > No hits
> >
> > Also, documentation mentions that Ada mode is supposed to be built-in,
> > but unless I install this package from ELPA, there's no Ada mode in my
> > Emacs installation.
> >
> > I found this page: https://alire.ada.dev/crates/emacs_ada_mode.html
> > which seems to imply that the crate exists, but I don't understand why
> > alr isn't finding it. (I'm very new to Ada).
> >
> > Any help would be very welcome.
> >
> > Best.
> >
> > Oleg
>
> Stephen Leake (in is the maintainer of ada-mode,