[tlbuild] once again test build

[Richard Koch]

Peter,

On Apr 7, 2014, at 5:06 AM, Peter Breitenlohner <peb at mppmu.mpg.de> wrote:
>> 
>> Everything compiled including asymptote,
>> xindy, and xz. We don't build asymptote or
>> luajit on PowerPC.
> 
> Hi Dick,
> 
> I suppose it is your choice not to build luajit on PowerPC, because that
> ought to be possible (with a sufficiently recent compiler).
> 
> Regards
> Peter

luajittex does not compile on powerpc-darwin, at least not with the compiler
which came with the system. The problem occurs during the ./configure step and
the log file reports

-----------
checking for library containing sqrt... none required
checking for library containing dlopen... none required
checking for special C compiler options needed for large files... no
checking for _FILE_OFFSET_BITS value needed for large files... no
checking for _LARGEFILE_SOURCE value needed for large files... no
checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
configure: error: Sorry, can not preprocess <lj_arch.h>
=== configuring in luajit failed
------------

I report this merely to satisfy your curiosity and not to ask for a fix, because
Mojca Miklavec reported my opinion on powerpc very accurately:
" I would bet that Dick wasn't really interested in
fixing any problems on PPC anyway (no matter how small ;)"

Originally we decided to drop support for powerpc Macs this 
year. I doubt that there are ANY such users
who run experimental versions of tex; (almost) all these
users run ordinary tex, latex, pdftex, and perhaps xetex.
The trouble is that dropping support for them means
they cannot use tlmgr to upgrade their style and class files, and that's something
these users will want to do. So as long as the main tex binaries compile we'll
provide powerpc updates.

This means that you are off the hook supporting powerpc on the Mac,
Peter. Congratulations. The bad news, however, is that although we
won't use the LLVM-Clang binaries this year, they represent the future of
the Mac and we will ask for fixes when TeX Live doesn't build there.
No current problems, though.

Dick Koch