Message-ID: <600f5818-5149-44d6-94de-aad508cb5183@mail.de>
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2023 16:06:00 +0100
MIME-Version: 1.0
Subject: Re: BUG #18194: Missing install instructions
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To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: pgsql-bugs@lists.postgresql.org
References: <18194-62f86810c0c693e4@postgresql.org>
 <2302347.1699909540@sss.pgh.pa.us>
From: John Pace <johnpace95@mail.de>
In-Reply-To: <2302347.1699909540@sss.pgh.pa.us>
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OK, I missed this sentence
 > However, this file is not stored in git and so will not be present if 
you are using a git checkout.

Since the content of the file README is wrong when using GitHub (it 
refers to a file INSTALL which is not available in GitHub) you should 
consider removing this file from GitHub, as you already did with the 
file INSTALL. Especially because this wrong file README is shown for 
everyone when viewing your repository:
https://github.com/postgres/postgres

Actually I was unhappy because your list of requirements did not 
mentioned these required packages:
libicu, perl-FindBin, perl-File-Compare
Even your configure script was not aware of them. I only "saw" the 
required packages based on the compiler errors.

I understand that you can't provide a list of exact package names for 
each distribution, but please add the missing packages as stated above. 
Thanks.

Am 13.11.2023 um 22:05 schrieb Tom Lane:
> PG Bug reporting form <noreply@postgresql.org> writes:
>> The file
>> https://github.com/postgres/postgres/blob/master/README
>> says you will find instructions to build PostgreSQL in the file INSTALL, but
>> this files does not exists.
> 
> I guess you read but didn't absorb what it says in README.git?
> 
>      In a release or snapshot tarball of PostgreSQL, a documentation file named
>      INSTALL will appear in this directory.  However, this file is not stored in
>      git and so will not be present if you are using a git checkout.
> 
>> So please change the file README.
> 
> It's correct as it stands for our current distribution processes.
> (Things probably will change in v17 because we plan to change what
> is in our distributed tarballs, but we won't change that in
> released branches.)
> 
>> 2. Also please provide a list of required packages.
> 
> We would need a different list for every operating system out there,
> even different distros of Linux.  And it'd vary depending on what
> build options you select.  So nope, that's not likely to happen.
> If you don't want to deal with figuring that out based on the list
> of requirements in the manual, I'd suggest using a prepackaged build
> from your OS distributor instead of building from source.
> 
> 			regards, tom lane