[Slackbuilds-users] conky doesn't build LONGER

[B Watson]

On 11/20/17, Matteo Bernardini <matteo.bernardini at gmail.com> wrote:

> - parallel install different lua versions;
> - checking that the various things that need those find the right one
> in each case.
> ...but this solution is really hard to implement, as the script being
> involved are =~ 150 and they have to be all tested working to
> implement it on the repository.
> if someone feels like doing this work it would be highly appreciated.

Looks like a lot of stuff links with lua's shared libs. I'd say,
keep things exactly as they are for lua 5.1, and add a lua53 build
that installs version 5.3 to a different prefix (maybe /opt/lua-5.3),
and doesn't install anything *at all* in /usr (except for /usr/doc/
I suppose), so there's no chance of conflict.

The lua53 build could also include a script, *disabled by default*,
that sets $PATH and whatever else lua uses, with instructions in the
README explaining how to source that script in .bash_profile. So if you
want your user account to use lua-5.3 when you run a script that says
"#!/usr/bin/env lua", you can, but root won't be set up that way. A
script that says "#!/usr/bin/lua" will always run lua-5.1 though.

Doing it that way, everything that currently uses lua 5.1 should continue
to work as-is. Anything new that needs lua-5.3 will need to explicitly
set the paths when building (maybe --with-lua=/opt/lua-5.3 or such,
if it uses autotools), including -Wl,-rpath or whatever's needed to
get the correct libs linked. SlackBuild scripts could also source the
abovementioned environment script, if that would help.

Once this is working, those 150 lua-using builds can slowly be tested
against 5.3, and fixed/patched as needed. Or not: why bother? Working
scripts are working scripts. Unless switching a script to use lua-5.3
actually makes the built package more useful to end-users, what would
be the point?

Disclaimer: I know very little about lua. The only reason it's impinged
on my awareness is that mame uses it... but it has to build its own
lua-5.3 from bundled sources, because it can't use 5.1. The rest of
mame's build system is actually written in lua, I'd love it if things
could be arranged so that mame could use a pre-existing lua 5.3 install.

The only game-changer here would be if Pat someday decided to include
lua in core Slackware. No idea if that's likely, so no point worrying
about it now.