New tools and 4.6.99.3

[Steven Johnson]

Ralf Corsepius wrote:

>On Thu, 2006-04-27 at 13:32 +1100, Steven Johnson wrote:
>  
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>Ive just started moving my project over to 4.6.99.3, and here is what I
>>have to report:
>>
>>I'm building the Bare BSP for a custom MPC862 target.
>>    
>>
>
>  
>
>>pppd and zlib:
>>
>>I have discovered that ZLib has crept its way inside the rtems source
>>tree.  A first glance seems to indicate this is for the support of
>>pppd. 
>>    
>>
>Nope, it is used by network support routines. So instead of having to
>reimplement all the compression functions anew, we use libz.
>  
>
I dont understand, I searched the source for uses of "zlib.h" there are
2 references:
1. in c/src/lib/libbsp/powerpc/shared/bootloader
    This contains its own implementation of zlib, which is a modified
0.93 version?
2. in cpukit/libnetworking/net/ppp-deflate.c
   This is the only reference to the included zlib library which is
installed.  Where else is it used?  Isnt this only for support of pppd,
which a lot of targets wont use?

>  
>
>> Neither of which are useful for me.  I already use zlib 1.2.3 and
>>my zlib is customized, so i cant have both of these.
>>    
>>
>Any particular reason for doing so?
>  
>
Well, yes. Zlib 1.2.3 is bug fixed.  Also, we have patched it so it
returns us status information through a decompress operation so we can
show the progress of long unzip's, which the library doesnt do
normally.  We change the headers, and because rtems is installing its
own zlib headers, which we dont use, it creates potential confusion
about which header is being used for the build.  I really dont see why a
standard library like zlib is forced on a build of rtems, if its not
required by the core OS.  It should be possible to build and install the
core OS, without the "extra's" like httpd, ftpd, pppd, but especially
"zlib".  At the least, there should be a configure option that says "use
included zlib", or "use user provided zlib, and here is where to look
for the headers".

Steven