Installation problem R9B-0

[Per Einar Strömme]

                        .....There's a first time for everything,
                             I hope this posting ends at the right
                             level.


                    Hej ! 


       I had some problems installing Erlang R9B-0 on my
SuSE Linux version 8.1 (I hope the choise of SuSE is not
a problem in it self ! ? ). 

       Since I'm not quite sure on if this is a bug,
I post this little report here.

       The main problem appears to have been my choice
of SWEDISH instead of English as preferred language.
~/div/otp_src_R9B-0>  echo $LANG
sv_SE
~/div/otp_src_R9B-0>




The symptom was:
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
~/div/otp_src_R9B-0> make
cd erts/emulator && ERL_TOP=~/div/otp_src_R9B-0 make generate depend
make[1]: Entering directory `~/div/otp_src_R9B-0/erts/emulator'
make -f i686-pc-linux-gnuoldld/Makefile generate
make[2]: Entering directory `~/div/otp_src_R9B-0/erts/emulator'
make[2]: i686-pc-linux-gnuoldld/Makefile: Filen eller katalogen finns inte
make[2]: *** No rule to make target `i686-pc-linux-gnuoldld/Makefile'.  Stop.
make[2]: Leaving directory `~/div/otp_src_R9B-0/erts/emulator'
make[1]: *** [generate] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `~/div/otp_src_R9B-0/erts/emulator'
make: *** [depend] Error 2
~/div/otp_src_R9B-0> 
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------



    The short short story:
    ----------------------

In the file  'otp_src_R9B-0/erts/autoconf/config.guess'  (row 884 & 886)
the printout from 'ld --help' is searched for the text: 'supported emulations'
but in my version it returns the swedish          text: 'emuleringar som stöds'.
I certainly did'nt expect the help text from ld to be translated but
it was.

So I changed the rows in 'config.guess' to the swedish text and 'make' workt.
For 'make install' I had to change it back to the original text.





    The short story:
    ----------------

Since I had to do some trial and error to get things to
work I'm a bit confused on what in the end did do a
difference.

I downloaded the otp_src_R9B-0.tar.gz to one user and
copied the uncompressed/untared file three to another 
user trying to 'make' the system there aswell but it
finaly was made to work in the original users filesystem.


At some stage it looked like something wanted to have
access to the otp_src_R9B-0.tar.gz,
'configure' or 'make' I don't remember

I also tried this:
./configure   --host=i686-pc-linux-gnu \
            --target=i686-pc-linux-gnu \
             --build=i686-pc-linux-gnu \
             --enable-threads

The following was recomended in some other posting on installation
problems:
       LANG=c
export LANG=c
       LANGUAGE=c
export LANGUAGE=c

and added: 'use bytes;' 
to erts/emulator/utils/make_preload



However I definitely changed the rows in 'config.guess' to the Swedish 
text for 'make' to work and then back to the English version for 'make install'.



--------------------------------------------- end of the short story ----



I suspect a hint about language versions in the README file is appropriate.

For the sake of easing the spreading of Erlang I guess some hints
could be added on what is recommended practice for running as root:

'configure'
'make'
'make install'

none, some or all and possible consequences thereof.
I'm no UNIX guru myself so I could use this hint.



                        Rgrds  Per Einar


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Per Einar Strömme    
p-news@REDACTED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------