Mold Linker Jumps From v2.4.1 To v2.30 To Resolve GNU libtool Compatibility

[edxposed]

GCC and Binutils have become garbage. Just switch to LLVM immediately to get rid of autotools hell. As bad as cmake is too, cmake+ninja is still much better than autotools+make.

[darkonix]

Or it is GNU software. Lots of GNU software (binutils, GCC, glibc, etc) still use autotools as far as I know. I don't know of any GNU software that doesn't use autotools, but I have not checked exhaustively.

And then there is a whole bunch of other projects that keep it out of inertia (it isn't working badly enough that they have reason to switch). Doesn't mean that the project itself is dead though as you seem to imply. I wouldn't consider Python to be "frozen in time with little sign of life" for example. Or ruby. Or a whole bunch of other long lived software.

There is a whole bunch of projects still using plain make files after all, or custom make-based build systems. So your generalisation really doesn't work. What is true though as far as I know is that there aren't many newly created projects using autotools.

I would say that their build systems are frozen in time.

[discordian]

GCC and Binutils have become garbage. Just switch to LLVM immediately to get rid of autotools hell. As bad as cmake is too, cmake+ninja is still much better than autotools+make.

What does GCC/Binutils have to do with autohell? Because its all GNU stuff?

[mathletic]

libtool has no shame. anyone still using it or autoconf/make in 2024 are clearly stuck up a creek without a paddle, so kudos for mold for helping them out.

Out of my head, LibreOffice and Java (OpenJDK) are prominent projects stuck with Autotools. I think they would profit from CMake or Meson. Sadly, devs don't want to move.

In general, Autotools (Automake, Autoconf, Libtools) lack resources to keep up with the pace of the world. To relevant to die, to annoying to keep using them.

[LtdJorge]

I see lots of libtool usage on my Gentoo updates. Just for reference, I'm building with an LLVM toolchain.

[Blademasterz]

It's funny because our Linux OSes are built on top of old legacy programs / tools, most of them are either X components or gnu stuff, you know it if you have an LFS 😂

Kudos to distro maintainers