Subject: Re: bug#9715: Error while compiling coreutils-8.12

From: Paul Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:44:35 -0700

Thanks for the bug report.

>From the 'configure' file you sent, it appears that you're
using a modified version of coreutils, along with some other
files (e.g., <floss.h>) that aren't part of the coreutils
distribution.

The "configure" file is generated automatically, so if it's
not working for you, we need to fix the source code for
"configure" rather than patching it by hand.  The source
code can be found in "configure.in" as well as in the
m4/*.m4 files.

Also, if any other source code is needed to build coreutils,
we'd need that.  I expect that this would include
<floss.h> (which declares alloca and floss_getmntent)
and perhaps the code for floss_getmntent.

It puzzles me that any of these changes are needed, as I
thought that coreutils already ran on Tandem.  Perhaps
Tandem has changed? or it's an issue of which compiler or
library is being used?

One other thing: it's better to use the latest version of
coreutils (currently this is 8.13).  Sometimes this fixes
your problem without any further effort on your part; and
even when it doesn't, any patches are easier to merge in.