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What is best linux distribution for Ada programmers?

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reinert

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Aug 13, 2019, 2:48:02 AM8/13/19
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Debian? Ubuntu?

reinert

Optikos

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Aug 13, 2019, 9:25:15 AM8/13/19
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On Tuesday, August 13, 2019 at 1:48:02 AM UTC-5, reinert wrote:
> What is the best Linux distribution for Ada programmers?
> Debian? Ubuntu?
>
> reinert

There was a time …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3HvUH4fJPM

… when Debian (or all? Debian-derived) was clearly & definitively the correct answer to this question, but Ludovic Brenta doesn't post here at c.l.a anymore, so perhaps his dedication to carrying the Ada torch among the Debian guiding lights might have waned a bit over the years.

J-P. Rosen

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Aug 13, 2019, 10:24:47 AM8/13/19
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No, Ludovic is still the maintainer of Debian Ada, and still supporting
the Ada world, especially by providing sandwiches for the speakers of
the Ada Dev-room at FOSDEM!

--
J-P. Rosen
Adalog
2 rue du Docteur Lombard, 92441 Issy-les-Moulineaux CEDEX
Tel: +33 1 45 29 21 52, Fax: +33 1 45 29 25 00
http://www.adalog.fr

Optikos

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Aug 13, 2019, 11:31:32 AM8/13/19
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Well, then perhaps he should spend less time on sandwiches and more time maintaining this webpage:

https://people.debian.org/~lbrenta/debian-ada-policy.html#Help-wanted

No updates since 2014 make this championing of Ada on Debian appear morribund to the casual observer who happens to visit this flagship webpage for the Ada-on-Debian effort.

(Thank you very much, Ludovic, for all your efforts—both past & current. The nudging is meant to be a polite gentle reminder.)

Dmitry A. Kazakov

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Aug 13, 2019, 11:48:33 AM8/13/19
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On 2019-08-13 17:31, Optikos wrote:

> Well, then perhaps he should spend less time on sandwiches and more time maintaining this webpage:
>
> https://people.debian.org/~lbrenta/debian-ada-policy.html#Help-wanted
>
> No updates since 2014 make this championing of Ada on Debian appear morribund to the casual observer who happens to visit this flagship webpage for the Ada-on-Debian effort.

It is not a blog, it is a document describing rules of packaging Ada
projects for Debian. Less updates the better. As a provider of Debian
packages I would be horrified and have dropped Debian (and consequently
Ubuntu) support if it were changed each year.

--
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Optikos

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Aug 13, 2019, 12:13:46 PM8/13/19
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What is the “it” to which you refer—1) that webpage or 2) the Ada package in Debian? You surely aren't saying that there has been a complete lack of updates to the Ada package in Debian since 2014 (and that the webpage is accurate & current), are you?
Message has been deleted

reinert

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Aug 13, 2019, 2:47:01 PM8/13/19
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For example, I find Ada binder for plplot under debian 10 but not under debian 9.
Can I trust that plplot will be to find under future debian (or linux in general) ?

reinert

Dmitry A. Kazakov

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Aug 13, 2019, 4:01:20 PM8/13/19
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The Debian Ada policy document. I am not aware of any inaccuracies or
changes regarding Debian/Ubuntu Ada policies.

Optikos

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Aug 13, 2019, 5:36:55 PM8/13/19
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On Tuesday, August 13, 2019 at 3:01:20 PM UTC-5, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> On 2019-08-13 18:13, Optikos wrote:
> > On Tuesday, August 13, 2019 at 10:48:33 AM UTC-5, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> >> On 2019-08-13 17:31, Optikos wrote:
> >>
> >>> Well, then perhaps he should spend less time on sandwiches and more time maintaining this
> >>> webpage:
> >>>
> >>> https://people.debian.org/~lbrenta/debian-ada-policy.html#Help-wanted
> >>>
> >>> No updates since 2014 make this championing of Ada on Debian appear morribund to the casual
> >>> observer who happens to visit this flagship webpage for the Ada-on-Debian effort.
> >>
> >> It is not a blog, it is a document describing rules of packaging Ada
> >> projects for Debian.

That is in there too, but other material appears interspersed on that webpage. The other material (especially the tables' content) is antiquated.

> >> Less updates the better. As a provider of Debian
> >> packages I would be horrified and have dropped Debian (and consequently
> >> Ubuntu) support if it were changed each year.
> >
> > What is the “it” to which you refer—1) that webpage or 2) the Ada package in Debian? You surely
> > aren't saying that there has been a complete lack of updates to the Ada package in Debian since 2014
> > (and that the webpage is accurate & current), are you?
>
> The Debian Ada policy document. I am not aware of any inaccuracies or
> changes regarding Debian/Ubuntu Ada policies.
>
> --
> Regards,
> Dmitry A. Kazakov
> http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

There is more in that webpage than merely normative policies. The tables of cross referencing versions of FSF GCC and AdaCore GNAT releases has not been updated since 2014. This flagship webpage for Ada-on-Debian gives the strong impression (e.g., to such people who pose OP's question) that the Ada-on-Debian effort is receiving less-fervent attention that it once did a half-decade ago, due to the stale information in those cross-reference tables.

Except embedded-target-specific distributions of Linux for various typically-ARM SBCs, the OP should never even need to doubt that Debian has the most-vibrant active FSF GNAT Ada support (outside of AdaCore) of all the Linux distributions.

Dirk Heinrichs

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Aug 17, 2019, 4:31:29 AM8/17/19
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Am 13.08.19 um 20:47 schrieb reinert:

> Can I trust that plplot will be to find under future debian

No, you can't. Any package can be abandoned again, for example due to
unfixed upstream bugs, maintainer losing interest, Debian thinking the
license doesn't fit, etc. I still build my own packages for the original
CDRecord tool by Jörg Schilling for every new Debian version.

HTH...

Dirk

Ludovic Brenta

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Aug 30, 2019, 3:18:48 PM8/30/19
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"J-P. Rosen" <ro...@adalog.fr> writes:
> Le 13/08/2019 à 15:25, Optikos a écrit :
>> On Tuesday, August 13, 2019 at 1:48:02 AM UTC-5, reinert wrote:
>>> What is the best Linux distribution for Ada programmers?
>>> Debian? Ubuntu?
>>>
>>> reinert
>>
>> There was a time …
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3HvUH4fJPM
>>
>> … when Debian (or all? Debian-derived) was clearly & definitively
>> the correct answer to this question, but Ludovic Brenta doesn't post
>> here at c.l.a anymore, so perhaps his dedication to carrying the Ada
>> torch among the Debian guiding lights might have waned a bit over
>> the years.
>>
> No, Ludovic is still the maintainer of Debian Ada, and still supporting
> the Ada world, especially by providing sandwiches for the speakers of
> the Ada Dev-room at FOSDEM!

To be perfectly honest, I have indeed lost most of my energy but my
former padawan, Nicolas Boulenguez, hs now beeb a full Debian Developer
for several years and continues to update packages (even now doing the
transition to gnat-9 for the next Debian release, in experimental). I
am very proud of him.

I only occasionally skim this newsgroup and post even less often. But
since you're mentioning me I have to express my gratitude and reassure
Debian users that Ada is still going strong :)

IIRC there was a one-man effort to port Ada and many packages to
DragonflyBSD, with the express purpose of stealing the crown jewel from
Debian. So perhaps DragonflyBSD is a strong contender too nowadays.

A few months ago I held a two-afternoon workshop about cryptography for
my 13-year-old son and a few of his friends. Of course we programmed in
Ada on Debian. Piece of cake for everyone involved to get GPS and
GtkAda running.

--
Ludovic Brenta.
A centralized, purpose-driven, high-definition and activity-centric solid profitability standardizes a high-grade and/or hypothesis-driven modern simplicity.

Azathoth Hastur

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Sep 29, 2019, 4:50:14 PM9/29/19
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On Tuesday, August 13, 2019 at 2:48:02 AM UTC-4, reinert wrote:
> Debian? Ubuntu?
>
> reinert

freebsd.org

Andrew Shvets

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Oct 15, 2019, 10:09:33 PM10/15/19
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On Tuesday, August 13, 2019 at 2:48:02 AM UTC-4, reinert wrote:
> Debian? Ubuntu?
>
> reinert

I would say that it depends purely on what you want to accomplish (and your requirements).

But, why would there be a difference between Ubuntu and Debian? The former is very similar to the latter.

reinert

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Oct 16, 2019, 3:35:58 AM10/16/19
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Ubuntu does their own work keeping Ada up to date?

reinert

Dmitry A. Kazakov

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Oct 16, 2019, 4:20:28 AM10/16/19
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AFAIK, Ubuntu has GCC 9, Debian is still 8.

Ludovic Brenta

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Oct 16, 2019, 2:43:22 PM10/16/19
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"Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mai...@dmitry-kazakov.de> writes:
>> Ubuntu does their own work keeping Ada up to date?

Not that I know. All they do is import and recompile packages from
Debian.

> AFAIK, Ubuntu has GCC 9, Debian is still 8.

Ubuntu is always, by definition and by construction, behind Debian. The
compiler is only the foundation of the entire ecosystem of packages.
And you should not look at the gcc package but at the gnat package.

--
Ludovic Brenta.

Dmitry A. Kazakov

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Oct 16, 2019, 4:00:24 PM10/16/19
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That is not necessarily a contradiction. Debian buster has only
libgnat-8. Yes, libgnat-9 is available for Debian, but only in testing.
Ubuntu disco has libgnat-9 already. It is likely the Debian testing's
libgnat-9. You can have both testing ahead and stable behind!

Ludovic Brenta

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Oct 16, 2019, 5:13:27 PM10/16/19
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"Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mai...@dmitry-kazakov.de> writes:
> On 2019-10-16 20:43, Ludovic Brenta wrote:
>> "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mai...@dmitry-kazakov.de> writes:
>
>>> AFAIK, Ubuntu has GCC 9, Debian is still 8.
>>
>> Ubuntu is always, by definition and by construction, behind Debian. The
>> compiler is only the foundation of the entire ecosystem of packages.
>> And you should not look at the gcc package but at the gnat package.
>
> That is not necessarily a contradiction. Debian buster has only
> libgnat-8. Yes, libgnat-9 is available for Debian, but only in
> testing. Ubuntu disco has libgnat-9 already. It is likely the Debian
> testing's libgnat-9. You can have both testing ahead and stable
> behind!

At the risk of repeating myself, gnat is only the foundation of the
ecosystem of packages and is in fact pretty irrelevant. You should look
at the gnat-gps package, which depends on almost everything else, to get
an accurate idea of what each distro carries.

And yes, I am aware of the differences between stable and testing, thank
you very much.

--
Ludovic Brenta.

Alain De Vos

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Oct 17, 2019, 8:32:24 AM10/17/19
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On Tuesday, August 13, 2019 at 8:48:02 AM UTC+2, reinert wrote:
> Debian? Ubuntu?
>
> reinert

There is even a gcc-aux ada compiler on freebsd.

Dirk Heinrichs

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Oct 18, 2019, 1:13:49 PM10/18/19
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Am 17.10.19 um 14:32 schrieb Alain De Vos:

> There is even a gcc-aux ada compiler on freebsd.

Wonder what the FreeBSD people would say if they hear you calling
their OS a Linux distribution... *SCNR*

Bye...

Dirk
- --
Dirk Heinrichs <dirk.he...@altum.de>
GPG Public Key: D01B367761B0F7CE6E6D81AAD5A2E54246986015
Sichere Internetkommunikation: http://www.retroshare.org
Privacy Handbuch: https://www.privacy-handbuch.de
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dirk.di...@gmail.com

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Oct 20, 2019, 3:25:19 AM10/20/19
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Am Dienstag, 13. August 2019 08:48:02 UTC+2 schrieb reinert:
> Debian? Ubuntu?
>
> reinert

Just for completeness, ArchLinux support is nice with gcc-ada and many additional packages in AUR. I really very much enjoy them, although when regularly updating, there are (the usual) itches and version conflicts (currently clang 8 to 9 for GPS).
Dirk

reinert

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Oct 21, 2019, 12:49:09 AM10/21/19
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"Pretty Print" does not function for me (using gnat-gps) under Debian 10.1.
I get messages like this:

File "/usr/share/gps/support/ui/gnattest.py", line 103, in get_harness_project_file
return six.reduce(compare, list, "")
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'reduce'

Anybody with similar experience? Workaround?

reinert

Bojan Bozovic

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Oct 27, 2019, 5:03:54 AM10/27/19
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I can confirm this bug, under Debian 10.1. I'm interested in a workaround as well.

Azathoth Hastur

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Nov 7, 2019, 6:50:21 PM11/7/19
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archlinux is very clean and has up to date everything

FreeBSD might be some trouble since they love klang and are not as centered on gcc

artix is like arch

debian and ur-bung-2 are like deadrat they have so much of their own culture I find them cumbersom

darkestkhan

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Nov 10, 2019, 8:23:16 AM11/10/19
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On Thursday, November 7, 2019 at 11:50:21 PM UTC, Azathoth Hastur wrote:
> On Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 5:03:54 AM UTC-4, Bojan Bozovic wrote:
> > On Monday, October 21, 2019 at 6:49:09 AM UTC+2, reinert wrote:
> > > "Pretty Print" does not function for me (using gnat-gps) under Debian 10.1.
> > > I get messages like this:
> > >
> > > File "/usr/share/gps/support/ui/gnattest.py", line 103, in get_harness_project_file
> > > return six.reduce(compare, list, "")
> > > AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'reduce'
> > >
> > > Anybody with similar experience? Workaround?
> > >
> > > reinert
> >
> > I can confirm this bug, under Debian 10.1. I'm interested in a workaround as well.
>
> archlinux is very clean and has up to date everything

If you got time to fix all the issues caused by being on latest version of software...

>
> FreeBSD might be some trouble since they love klang and are not as centered on gcc
>
> artix is like arch
>
> debian and ur-bung-2 are like deadrat they have so much of their own culture I find them cumbersom

Cumbersome because they have their own culture? So gentoo and slackware are cumbersome as well... and so is arch. Sorry to be the one that has to bring this to you but some people prefer stability over latest and newest. This is where Debian shines.

Alain De Vos

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Nov 10, 2019, 4:15:15 PM11/10/19
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PS1 : freebsd uses gcc6-aux. Until now it works fine for me. Offcourse if someone ports ada to clang/llvm-90 ...
PS2: I tried debian, it works also.

Lucretia

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Nov 11, 2019, 12:46:55 AM11/11/19
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llvm-gnat is experimental

Alain De Vos

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Nov 17, 2019, 5:41:46 AM11/17/19
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Two interesting linux distributions with some ada packages are :
- fedora
- gentoo

Lucretia

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Nov 17, 2019, 7:43:51 AM11/17/19
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Gentoo is crap for Ada and is the reason why I started free-ada, so I could have Ada on Gentoo.

Azathoth Hastur

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Dec 15, 2019, 5:13:47 PM12/15/19
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debian is garbage

you have like 4 level of newest packages

archlinux is rock soldi because it has ALL the latest debugged code!! stable latest!! in binary form!!
also art of linux an arch derivative has s3 init which is apparently better than systemD

debian is a poor choice for production

ponderous old atuan turtle vs latest super space ship MORE STABLE than DEBIAN

guix and nixos also lag and dont have latest stable kernel

you have no idea how wrong you are

freebsd has ZFS on root and is ALMOST as up to date
uses klang if you like that
and easier than arch to install

the ranking of operating system in the world now:
rmox or plan9 (rmox needs to go 64 bit and plan9 you need to really learn to program)
art of linux aka artix
archlinux
freebsd dragonflybsd netbsd maybe guix
openbsd replace all your routers
maybe nixos

werc.cat-v.org
happstack.com
aidaweb.si


deadrat and ur bung 2 and dweebian avoid at all costs
slack is poo
nixos packages are not up to date
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