configure: error: invalid variable name: build_alias

[James Yates]

I see that you are using cygwin to build rtems. I along with several
other people have run into this problem when building rtems using
cygwin. Search the message list and you will come up with loads of posts
regarding this problem. I cam across this a while ago when I updated
PCs. I was running Win2000 on a Athlon Xp2000 Pc. Updated to a P4 2.8Ghz
pc and this problem arose. I mucked around for ages with any consistent
success. I found that turning hyper-threading off in the bios helped
although did not fix the problem. 

   This is basically a bug in cygwin, something to do with not freeing
windows handles correctly. If you are experiencing the problem try the
following things:

   1) If you are not running Windows XP pro,  try it. I don't believe
that I have had a single problem since I updated to XP.

   2) If this problem occurs, delete the temporary build directory
structure, reboot and try again.
   3) While building rtems, don't do anything intesive on your PC. Any
programs you need to be using while waiting for the build to complete
should be running before you start the build. Avoid anything that uses
intensive graphics processing. Basically, the more work your PC is
doing, the more likely it is to fail. I ended up having to start a build
and then go for a cigarette, cup of tea and play endless games of
Freecell while the build was happening.

An alternative solution to this would be to take an old PC, install
linux on it, create a samba share so that your Windows PC can see the
contents of its disk, then use this as an rtems build pc. This is
something I haven't done although to me would seem the best solution
since this problem is due to a bug in cygwin.

   Sorry I can't provide anything more concrete than that. Everyone who
has this problem seems to have slightly different things that make it
worse/better.

	Good luck.

		James

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Holle [mailto:sholle at link-comm.com] 
Sent: 07 June 2004 23:58
To: rtems-users at rtems.com
Subject: configure: error: invalid variable name: build_alias

configure: error: invalid variable name: build_alias

Has anyone come up with a cure for this problem during build?


Steve Holle
Link Communications, Inc.
1035 Cerise Rd.
Billings, MT  59101
sholle at link-comm.com