[asterisk-dev] zaptel, menuselect and autoconf

[Tzafrir Cohen]

On Tue, Jul 31, 2007 at 07:34:54AM -0500, Tilghman Lesher wrote:
> On Tuesday 31 July 2007, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
> > > Asterisk is really the application menuselect was designed for. However,
> > > is there really a point for the common user to disable building modules?
> > > Again: "make the common task simple, make everything possible". One
> > > problem with menuselect of today is that it makes it all too easy to
> > > accidentally building a module.
> >
> > So again: what usage scenarios are there where there is a benefit from
> > using menuselect with asterisk?
> >
> > (This is not a rhethorical question. Please provide examples)
> 
> I think the main benefit is persistance.  If you really only need to build
> two modules for a particular installation, then it is easier simply to
> do (on update):  "svn update ; ./configure ; make ; make install" (and
> remember, it is EXACTLY the same sequence as Asterisk, which, on
> an update, you are going to build as well).  And the persistance saves
> you both thought time (what does this box actually have installed in it?)
> and compile time (why am I compiling a module that this box will never
> use?).

Is this supposed to be quoted as an atvantage of menuselect?

Menuselect breaks persistance: it starts a user interface. It
must be interactive. Thus does not allow simple automation the way
configure (autoconf) is. You can't "save" the choices you made there in
your command-line history.

How do you automate the action of "disabling chan_zap"? How do you
automate the action of "enabling only ztdummy" (of the zaptel kernel
modules)?

The first is supposed to be rather easy, but in fact not
well-documented, and took me quite some time to understand (and with
non-intuitive variable names). The second is practically impossible.

-- 
               Tzafrir Cohen       
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