Python on Minix

[Adrian Eyre]

I have managed to get it to work on Minix, but it was a bit of a
challenge.

The first problem was with configure:

> checking (some file) ...here file: not found
> grep: bad regular expression

These are due to known bugs in Minix's versions of /bin/sh and
/usr/bin/grep. Patches to fix these are available from:

http://minix1.hampshire.edu/

After that, you'll get problems with a lot of the includes not
including /usr/include/sys/types.h. I found the easiest fix for
this was to add "#include <sys/types.h>" to the top of 
/usr/include/unistd.h.

A bit later on, some other stuff will fail in the Modules/
directory (a think it's a bug in make). You'll need to remove
the dependencies from the bottom of the Makefile that are
automatically generated.

The final problem is that Minix only supports 14 character
filenames, and some of the files in the Python distribution are
longer than that. This will require the filenames to be renamed
appropriately, changes to the Makefile, and any files which
include them.

I think that's all the problems I encountered. Except for a
few problems in the time module.

> I read the README file and saw for Minix
> when using ack, "CC=cc AR=aal RANLIB=: ./configure",
> so i typed './configure CC=cc AR=aal RANLIB=:'  (is this right???)

You need to type it in as it says:

CC=cc AR=aal RANLIB=: ./configure

But I think configure picks these all up for you, so just typing
"./configure" should do it (providing you address the problems with
sh and grep.)

Alternatively, I could send a precompiled version, or a version
that builds straight out of the box.

I'm not sure how Guido can claim that Python will build okay on
Minix. Admittedly most of this isn't his fault, but the 14
character limit (POSIX standard) ought to be addressed, and
perhaps the fussyness of Minix's includes.

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Adrian Eyre <mailto:a.eyre at optichrome.com>
Optichrome Computer Solutions Ltd
Maybury Road, Woking, Surrey, GU21 5HX, UK
Tel: +44 1483 740 233  Fax: +44 1483 760 644
http://www.optichrome.com 
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