[Vm-dev] Unix VM closure enabled?

[David T. Lewis]

On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 06:46:32PM +0200, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
> 
> On 17.07.2009, at 18:25, Andreas Wacknitz wrote:
> 
> >Am 17.07.2009 um 13:23 schrieb Damien Cassou:
> >
> >>On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 12:56 AM, Andreas Raab<andreas.raab at gmx.de>  
> >>wrote:
> >>>In any case, what is the process that users have to go through to  
> >>>get a
> >>>closure-enabled VM on their preferred Unix flavor?
> >>
> >>Download the 'GNU/Linux and other Unix' VM from:
> >
> >I don't understand why UNIX is mentioned if only a Linux VM is  
> >available under this entry.
> >I really would like to see a real (and actual) UNIX VM available for  
> >download.

The home page for unix (including Linux) VMs is http://www.squeakvm.org/unix/.
Traditionally this has included support for a fairly broad range of unix
platforms, including Linux. Regardless of the relative popularity of
various platforms, maintaining a broad range of support seems like
a fundamentally Good Thing To Do, as it helps flush out all sorts of
platform specific problems and generally makes it more likely that
the VM will remain portable whenever Linux becomes unfashionable.

Currently the home page does not have updates for closure-enabled VMs,
although I expect that we will be able to rectify this shortly. In the
mean time, you can use the closure enabled VM that Bryce has provided
for Linux systems (or of course just build your own; as long as you
are using an up to date VMMaker, it will have the necessary closure
support).

> There are very few non-Linux Unix users in the Squeak community. If  
> someone would step forward to maintain a Solaris or *BSD or whatever  
> unixy VM binary they would be welcome. Until then, everyone who needs  
> it compiles their own.

Actually I have no clue how many non-Linux Unix users might be out
there. They certainly are a quiet lot, but they do seem to pop up with
questions from time to time.

> Alternatively, someone could set up compiling VMs on a build farm,  
> which various projects do provide (even for free). That way we'd get  
> more VM binaries (and hopefully the users would report back with  
> problems).

A build farm would be a good idea, if someone is in a position to
support it. Ian Piumarta has done this for many years using whatever
resources might be at hand. I suspect that this is largely a labor
of love, and it might not be appropriate for us to expect him to maintain
a complete build farm on his kitchen table indefinitely ;)

Dave