Intermediate Result

It was six months ago then musl libc was build as the first package of qLinux. At the beginning it was not clear how it will go. But after all there is a small basic system - and it works. Every built package have been changed. Changes to the source code and changes to the build system. And we have managed to get through the dependencies hell. Even if it was sometimes a bit tricky to get the one or another package to find a dependency in a non standard location. Through the whole process there was a continuous learning curve. From build to build, package to package there were new cognizance what and especially where changes have to be made. In the later builds there was a routine which helped speeding up applying “standard” changes.

The build systems itself were the bigger challenge. The most variety of the packages are based on GNU autotools. It's auto-magic was (is) sometimes terrible. Sometimes it was impossible to figure out the right way how to manage things. There so many duplicates and iterations that it was not clear which of them is responsible for a task. Or at least not with reasonable effort. Why doing the checks again and again for each module? However, after all the investigation it is astonishing that it works in this way. At least with more or less FHS compliant systems. The documentation per package is weak, wrong and lacks. Functionality isn't documented in some cases. Other still doesn't work like the documentation says. The only way would be to read the code, but that's nearly impossible. A chain of to many partially unintelligible variables. Sometimes it would be considerable to replace the build system.

In contrast the sources of the programs itself are in most cases much easier to change. At least as long it is based on the C programming language. Some rarely packages have the related changes centralized, but the most packages needs the same change in various files. In comparison with the build systems the source code requires quiet often fewer changes. At the end it could be said that the sources are in a better shape.

Now lets move forward and build more packages to get a more usable system.