[Coco] OVCC - attn Walter Zambotti?

[Walter Zambotti]

The consequences of the AGAR changes are difficult to determine. It could be worse it could be better. The AGAR devs have already accepted some of my bug fixes to the next version of AGAR but if you want those bug fixes back ported to the current version then guess what there is my version or bust.

Sure some of the features I added could make things worse but there are not a lot of AGAR packages out there. In any case as you already suggested libraries can be used in isolation.

Remember there is no version of AGAR that supports SDL2 except mine. This driver is configured optionally at run time by the calling application. Since no other developer knows of my driver other AGAR apps can't accidentally evoke my driver.

In addition AGAR comes with a test suite that tests every function.  The test suite passed both for my SDL2 driver and for the standard drivers. 

So while in theory it is still possible for my changes to have caused regressions I believe i have  minimised this to the possible but not probable level.

It is my intention when the next version of AGAR is released to remove the ovcc special dependencies and try with a stock AGAR.  At the time I couldn't see how this could be possible but after a lot of research there may be a way to achieve this. But if it is not possible then my additions will have to stay.

Walter


Sent from my Xperia by Sony smartphone

---- Tormod Volden wrote ----

>> On 2020-04-25 07:48, Andrew wrote:
>> > But the only actual installs I will trust not to make a mess of my
>> > system (and be easily able to be completely removed with the state
>> > restored to things it changed during install) have to come from some
>> > kind of debian-style repository.
>
>You might want to look at my PPA where I upload OVCC snapshots:
>https://launchpad.net/~tormodvolden/+archive/ubuntu/ovcc
>
>These Agar libag-* packages would indeed replace any normal Agar
>packages, and possibly break other software using Agar, but at least
>they are easy to uninstall or replace.
>
>(And BTW just in case some people look at the PPA and wonder: Yes, you
>can in most cases install packages built for e.g. Bionic on a newer
>system like 20.04. Up until some years ago, it was actually common
>that a release contained packages that hadn't been rebuilt since
>previous releases, until they would break.)
>
>> >
>> > So - my first question would be: Can this be done with OVCC? Do I have
>> > to do a "make install" for anything? Can the patched GUI library
>> > remain "out of the loop" as far as the system and compilation goes for
>> > OVCC? So that - should I install a "new version" from a repo (or the
>> > distro, if it has it) it will work for that stuff, as if the custom
>> > version never existed...
>> >
>> > My second question would be - in lieu of the above, how well does OVCC
>> > work via other "methods"? What I'm thinking of would be (potentially)
>> > as installed under a containerized version of Linux, or on a
>> > virtualbox image; does performance suffer much?
>> >
>
>You are raising a good point, and on Linux you can "containerize"
>simply using LD_LIBRARY_PATH. It should be rather simple to change
>above patched Agar library packages to install a special location
>where normal programs won't see them, and either use LD_LIBRARY_PATH
>or compile the ovcc binary to search in this special location. The
>library packages also would need renaming so that the stock Agar
>packages can be installed in parallel.
>
>
>On Sat, Apr 25, 2020 at 4:33 AM Walter Zambotti wrote:
>> The AGAR library needs to be placed in a location where it can be
>> located.  Part of building the AGAR library does this for you with a
>> (sudo make install, of course).  If you don't want to install the
>> library then you can try placing the it in the same folder where you
>> have ovcc.
>>> Walter
>
>When running configure the --prefix or --libdir options can be used so
>that "make install" copies the library files somewhere else. Anyway,
>we are talking about 4 library files (libag-*.so) so manual copying is
>overseeable.
>
>On the other hand, all or some of your changes would belong in the
>upstream Agar, so any effort towards getting them upstream would be
>laudable and maybe one day we don't need a custom version.
>
>Walter, BTW, have you made any changes to your Agar since 2019-01-17?
>
>Regards,
>Tormod
>
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