Phase out Autotools Build System

[MikuAuahDark]

During the release of 11.5, we have bit of discussion on switching the Linux build system from Autotools to CMake. This means one build system for every platform we support (except macOS families), although Linux enthusiast users may not happy with this change.

I left this open for further discussion and didn't tag it to specific milestones for same reason.

[bartbes]

I took a quick look the other day, and this is a (non-exhaustive) list of things I couldn't find in the CMake implementation:

• Some magic stb_image flag here. As far as I can tell it's dead code, as I couldn't find any references to LOVE_STBI_SSE2_OVERRIDE.
• An option to disable GME here. I'm not sure we still need it.
• Flags to disable specific modules. Again, I'm not sure we need to reproduce it. We probably could with some relatively simple cmake scripting, but I doubt anyone seriously uses it.
• Some OSX stuff? Given that it's called "OSX" rather than macOS, and I've never heard anyone talk about it after the initial request, maybe nobody uses it? Looks like homebrew just grab the published binaries
• Generating files here and here
• A bunch of stuff for make install here

I feel like if we implement the last two, we should be set. I'm sure generating files is as simple as configure_file, but I've never dealt with install targets on cmake, and the docs always confuse me.

[slime73]

LOVE_STBI_SSE2_OVERRIDE

I think that was for an older version of stb_image. It shouldn't be needed anymore.

An option to disable GME

We've completely removed GME support (whereas before you could compile love with it enabled but it wasn't built like that by default, at least on Windows/macOS) so that can go too.

[MikuAuahDark]

Generating files here and here

Are those Debian-specific files still needed? All of the files listed there are at least 5 years old since its last commit. I don't think recent Debian uses those anymore, but I'm not sure.

A bunch of stuff for make install here

Do they just need to be placed in their respective directories or is there an additional program that needs to be run? I think GNUInstallDirs helps here.

Flags to disable specific modules. Again, I'm not sure we need to reproduce it. We probably could with some relatively simple cmake scripting, but I doubt anyone seriously uses it.

This is doable, but I'm not sure if we really need it. I remember someone asked in Discord if it's possible to disable specific modules compile-time.

[slime73]

Compile-time module disabling isn't really maintained enough to know whether it works as expected right now I think (e.g. I'm not sure which combinations actually compile successfully these days). It'd be nice to polish it up and make it easily supported on all platforms, but maybe that's a separate task with a different priority.

[bartbes]

Are those Debian-specific files still needed? All of the files listed there are at least 5 years old since its last commit. I don't think recent Debian uses those anymore, but I'm not sure.

I use them for ppa builds.

[bartbes]

Also requires a change to the appimage repo, see the corresponding PR here: love2d/love-appimage-source#4

[MikuAuahDark]

LOVE 12 is no longer using Autotools for Linux build system.

[a-detiste]

Hi, Debian used to statically link liblove inside love executable. Is it still possible with CMake ?

[slime73]

What sort of situation do you want that for?

[a-detiste]

...inertia... that's how other people did setup the autoconf build before me.

dh_auto_configure -- --disable-shared --enable-static --with-lua=$(LUA_IMPL)

If you say it's not supported anymore (/ or it never made any sense) it's fine,
we'll build a real liblove0.so

[slime73]

Having a separate .so also lets people load and use love's APIs from a standalone Lua interpreter if they want (although it's pretty rare to want that.)

[a-detiste]

I've browsed https://repology.org/project/love/packages and I see that many distro that upgraded to 11.5 are using platform/unix/automagic but I don't want to go that way either.

Supporting a CMake build of love with the .so built-in woudl be the best.

[slime73]

Proper robust cmake support for Linux (as well as the removal of the autotools build system) is part of the upcoming love 12 release, rather than love 11.5.

[a-detiste]

Ok so I guess I'll use automagic for 11.5 & CMake for 12, thanks for the clarification

https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/love/raw/rawhide/f/love.spec
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/termux/termux-packages/4291a36de/x11-packages/love/build.sh
https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/nixos-unstable/pkgs/development/interpreters/love/11.nix#L34
https://gitlab.com/liguros/liguros-repo/-/raw/develop/games-engines/love/love-11.5.ebuild
https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/plain/games-engines/love/love-11.5.ebuild