Error compiling mu4e v0.9.17

[Eduardo Mercovich]

Dear all.

Today I downloaded version 0.9.17 from Git. After decompressing and
moving into the mu-master directory, I run:
$ sudo autoreconf -i

without messages. Then
$sudo ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/

But upon this step, the process stops saying:
"configure: error: C++ compiler cannot create executables"

This didn't happened before as previous versions were succesfully
compiled. I still have the same (old) Debian Wheezy system configuration
and didn't change anything from previous compilations.
+ Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.73-2+deb7u2 x86_64 GNU/Linux
+ g++-4.7.2-5

From the config.log (sorry I don't know how to interpret it) it smells
like the problem may be the g++ compiler, since it says -among many many
many other things-:

gcc version 4.7.2 (Debian 4.7.2-5)
configure:3181: $? = 0
configure:3170: g++ -V >&5
g++: error: unrecognized command line option '-V'
g++: fatal error: no input files
compilation terminated.

Trying to check this, I tried running:
$g++ -v
which gives me a lot of info, while...

$g++ -V
gives me "unrecognized command line option ‘-V’" (what the log says).

So, in short: do I need g++ version equal or greater than 5 to compile
mu4e, or it is only a problem of lowercase -v in the version check? (I
didn't put it there, of course, I assume that it was generated from the
autoreconf command).

Sorry if I'm not clear, it's because I'm not programmer and so it's not
clear to me how to read or troubleshoot this issues...

In any case, thank you very much. :)

Best of lucks...


--
eduardo mercovich

Donde se cruzan tus talentos
con las necesidades del mundo,
ahí está tu vocación.

[Nicolas Richard]

Eduardo Mercovich writes:
> But upon this step, the process stops saying:
> "configure: error: C++ compiler cannot create executables"

> gcc version 4.7.2 (Debian 4.7.2-5)
> configure:3181: $? = 0
> configure:3170: g++ -V >&5
> g++: error: unrecognized command line option '-V'
> g++: fatal error: no input files
> compilation terminated.

This is not a real problem. I have a similar line in my own config.log
but my ./configure made no error.

> So, in short: do I need g++ version equal or greater than 5 to compile

I think ">&5" is a redirection, not a comparison.

Maybe someone can make sense out of the error you posted ("cannot create
executables"), but otherwise I think it will help to just dump the whole
config.log to some pastebin. Surely the cause of the error will be found
there.

--
Nicolas

[Eduardo Mercovich]

Dear Nicolas.

[...]

>> But upon this step, the process stops saying:
>> "configure: error: C++ compiler cannot create executables"

> This is not a real problem. I have a similar line in my own config.log

> but my ./configure made no error. [...]

> Maybe someone can make sense out of the error you posted ("cannot create
> executables"), but otherwise I think it will help to just dump the whole
> config.log to some pastebin. Surely the cause of the error will be found
> there.

Thanks a lot for your prompt help. :)

The config.log is pasted in http://pastebin.com/R68trpmF (1st time I
used a pastebin, quite useful BTW).

Again, thank you very much. :)

[Nicolas Richard]

Eduardo Mercovich <eduardo....@gmail.com> writes:
> The config.log is pasted in http://pastebin.com/R68trpmF (1st time I
> used a pastebin, quite useful BTW).

Here's the relevant bit from your paste : (found by searching for the
error message)

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
configure:3201: checking whether the C++ compiler works
configure:3223: g++ conftest.cpp >&5
/usr/bin/ld: BFD (GNU Binutils for Debian) 2.22 internal error, aborting at ../../bfd/reloc.c line 443 in bfd_get_reloc_size

/usr/bin/ld: Please report this bug.

collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
configure:3227: $? = 1
configure:3265: result: no
configure: failed program was:
| /* confdefs.h */
| #define PACKAGE_NAME "mu"
| #define PACKAGE_TARNAME "mu"
| #define PACKAGE_VERSION "0.9.17"
| #define PACKAGE_STRING "mu 0.9.17"
| #define PACKAGE_BUGREPORT "https://github.com/djcb/mu/issues"
| #define PACKAGE_URL ""
| #define PACKAGE "mu"
| #define VERSION "0.9.17"
| /* end confdefs.h. */
|
| int
| main ()
| {
|
| ;
| return 0;
| }
configure:3270: error: in `/home/edumerco/Descargas/mu-master':
configure:3272: error: C++ compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

From this point I have to give up unfortunately, but this doesn't look
like an mu problem. Unless you get better advice from someone else,
I can only suggest asking the folks at Debian.

Nicolas.

[Eduardo Mercovich]

Hi Nicolas.

>> The config.log is pasted in http://pastebin.com/R68trpmF (1st time I
>> used a pastebin, quite useful BTW).

> Here's the relevant bit from your paste : (found by searching for the
> error message)

I got up to the same point, but can't translate that information into
(actionable) knowledge... :)

Thanks Nicolas... It happened before (found that on Dirk's emacs-fu
blog) but then it was a problem of flags for compilation. I don't have
those, so it must be something else...

Does anyone built sucessfully mu4e with g++ version < 5?

[Dirk-Jan C. Binnema]

On Thursday Feb 25 2016, Eduardo Mercovich wrote:

> ?$ sudo autoreconf -i

>
> without messages. Then
> $sudo ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/

Side-note: I would recommend against using 'sudo' here - you only need
it more 'make install'. Probably not related to the problem here.

> Hi Nicolas.
>
>>> The config.log is pasted in http://pastebin.com/R68trpmF (1st time I
>>> used a pastebin, quite useful BTW).
>
>> Here's the relevant bit from your paste : (found by searching for the
>> error message)
>
> I got up to the same point, but can't translate that information into
> (actionable) knowledge... :)
>
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>> configure:3201: checking whether the C++ compiler works
>> configure:3223: g++ conftest.cpp >&5
>> /usr/bin/ld: BFD (GNU Binutils for Debian) 2.22 internal error, aborting at ../../bfd/reloc.c line 443 in bfd_get_reloc_size
>>
>> /usr/bin/ld: Please report this bug.

>> From this point I have to give up unfortunately, but this doesn't look
>> like an mu problem. Unless you get better advice from someone else,
>> I can only suggest asking the folks at Debian.
>
> Thanks Nicolas... It happened before (found that on Dirk's emacs-fu
> blog) but then it was a problem of flags for compilation. I don't have
> those, so it must be something else...

Nicolas is right.

This seems to be a problems with bfd (and google shows some more
sightings). You need to take it up with the Debian bfd packagers, it
seems.

> Does anyone built sucessfully mu4e with g++ version < 5?

Sure.

Kind regards,
Dirk.

--
Dirk-Jan C. Binnema Helsinki, Finland
e:dj...@djcbsoftware.nl w:www.djcbsoftware.nl
pgp: D09C E664 897D 7D39 5047 A178 E96A C7A1 017D DA3C

[Christian Schwarzgruber]

Hi Eduardo,

I can't really believe that g++ fails to compile this simple test program.

You could try to compile the test snippet yourself (see attached file), if it fails too, you maybe get a more comprehensive error output.

$ g++ main.cpp

I'm not sure whether configure used any other compiler flags.
Also, you do not need to run autoreconf/configure with the sudo command.

Side note, I just tested to compile it on debian jessy, the compiler version is 4.9.5, and it worked.

Last but not least, you could try to run configure on the same tag mu4e is available on debian wheezy, if this doesn't work, something must be terrible wrong :-)


Christian

[Eduardo Mercovich]

Hi Christian.

> [...] You could try to compile the test snippet yourself (see attached

> file), if it fails too, you maybe get a more comprehensive error
> output.
> $ g++ main.cpp

It returns:

/usr/bin/ld: error: /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/4.7/../../../x86_64-linux-gnu/crti.o: unsupported reloc 42 against global symbol __gmon_start__
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/4.7/../../../x86_64-linux-gnu/crti.o(.init+0x7): error: unsupported reloc 42

collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status

> I'm not sure whether configure used any other compiler flags.

> [...] Side note, I just tested to compile it on debian jessy, the

> compiler version is 4.9.5, and it worked.

Then it seems that I have a serious error here...
The strange thing is that I don't remember having changed anything
important here, my system is quite stable (except for mu4e, org-mode and
emacs).

The only thing was 1 library of an newer version that wheezy had... I
will hunt it down.

> Last but not least, you could try to run configure on the same tag
> mu4e is available on debian wheezy, if this doesn't work, something
> must be terrible wrong :-)

Sorry, I don't know what is a tag. <:/

Just to learn, does it makes sense to compile version 0.9.16? I know
it's probably a local issue since your main.cpp didn't compile, but
maybe I learn something in the middle or got more information.

Thanks a lot everyone that's helping... :)

[Eduardo Mercovich]

Dear Dirk.

> [...] Side-note: I would recommend against using 'sudo' here - you only need

> it more 'make install'. Probably not related to the problem here.

Noted, thanks. :)

[...]

>>> From this point I have to give up unfortunately, but this doesn't look
>>> like an mu problem. Unless you get better advice from someone else,
>>> I can only suggest asking the folks at Debian.
>>
>> Thanks Nicolas... It happened before (found that on Dirk's emacs-fu
>> blog) but then it was a problem of flags for compilation. I don't have
>> those, so it must be something else...
>
> Nicolas is right.

> This seems to be a problems with bfd (and google shows some more
> sightings). You need to take it up with the Debian bfd packagers, it
> seems.

I'll look into it (I'm learning by the minute, but not getting results
yet).

>> Does anyone built sucessfully mu4e with g++ version < 5?
> Sure.

Thanks... it's clearly a local thing then.
I'll check on some other place so I don't make more noise here. ;)

Thank you all again...

[Christian Schwarzgruber]

Eduardo, this might be good starting point https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=808206

regards,
Christian

[Eduardo Mercovich]

Hi Christian.

> Eduardo, this might be good starting point
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=808206

Thanks a lot, I'll keep searching until I got this version 0.9.17. ;)

Best regards...

[Eduardo Mercovich]

Hi Christian.

> Eduardo, this might be good starting point
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=808206

And a good ending too... I'm writing this from mu4e 0.9.17. :)

I'm documenting this just in case someone stumps on the same rock.
As you found, it's a bug that can be fixed by installing a newer
binutils. Since I'm on Debian old-stable, just tried the binutils
version from testing 2.26-4
(https://packages.debian.org/stretch/binutils currently).

And it works like a charm. :)
Thank you very much.

Mu4e is getting better by the day, not only because of the software, but
because of the warm people who's making and supporting this small
community.

Thank you again and have a great time... :)