Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2006 11:55 am Post subject: Universal Binary?
Looks like the NeoOffice download is either PPC or Intel, which isn't much good for those of us who install it in /Network/Applications for use with both PPC and Intel clients.
Is there any possibility of building a UB that'll run on either arch?
I'd download both versions and see if I could use lipo to make fat versions of the binaries, but I thought I'd post here to see if there was some fundamental issue that would prevent that from working.
Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2006 1:14 pm Post subject: Re: Universal Binary?
Anonymous wrote:
Looks like the NeoOffice download is either PPC or Intel, which isn't much good for those of us who install it in /Network/Applications for use with both PPC and Intel clients.
Is there any possibility of building a UB that'll run on either arch?
I'd download both versions and see if I could use lipo to make fat versions of the binaries, but I thought I'd post here to see if there was some fundamental issue that would prevent that from working.
-- Chris
There are no plans for a Universal Binary. I suggest that you install one platform, rename it, and then install the second one. That way, you can create NeoOffice-PowerPC.app and NeoOffice-Intel.app installations. Please don't lipo the 100+ shared libraries. You may inadvertantly cause a support nightmare for us if something goes wrong in your lipo'ing. All it takes is one bad shared library or resource file and things will start randomly crashing.
The fundamental issue is that the download for each platform is 120 MB in size. Making a Universal Binary would nearly double that and, at the same time, double our download costs as well as download times for users, and download support issues.
Joined: Apr 25, 2006 Posts: 2315 Location: Montpellier, France
Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2006 1:19 pm Post subject:
And it would be necessary to compile NeoOffice (& the OpenOffice.org codebase) for both architectures ... that would make a great 96-hour build, wouldn't it ?
One important thing to note if you put an Intel and a PowerPC installation on the same volume: don't apply Patch 0. Fortunately, if you do a full install, Patch 0 is unnecessary anyway. But if you installed Patch 0, each platform patch would update both installations. I'll fix this before I put out an future patches but I just wanted to note it here on the rare chance that someone runs into this bug in my patch installer.
Sounds like a lipo might work then. I'll work on a script that can merge the two builds safely and see how it goes. I won't ask for help if it doesn't work
I switch between PPC and Intel (my new MacBook Pro) frequently every day. I have the same network home directory and /Network/Applications on both, and using two different apps is cumbersome: I wouldn't be able to click to launch files since all the file associations would have to change everytime I moved from one machine to the other. UB's are perfect for that scenario.
Joined: Nov 21, 2005 Posts: 1285 Location: Witless Protection Program
Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2006 3:35 pm Post subject:
Anonymous wrote:
Sounds like a lipo might work then. I'll work on a script that can merge the two builds safely and see how it goes. I won't ask for help if it doesn't work
pluby wrote:
Please don't lipo the 100+ shared libraries. You may inadvertantly cause a support nightmare for us if something goes wrong in your lipo'ing. All it takes is one bad shared library or resource file and things will start randomly crashing.
I switch between PPC and Intel (my new MacBook Pro) frequently every day. I have the same network home directory and /Network/Applications on both, and using two different apps is cumbersome: I wouldn't be able to click to launch files since all the file associations would have to change everytime I moved from one machine to the other. UB's are perfect for that scenario.
-- Chris
Chris, I'm Confused,
Why would you have to switch applications?
You would ONLY install NeoOffice Intel on the Intel Mac, and NeoOffice PPC on the PPC Mac. One installation on each system. Yes, You would have to download two versions (PPC & Intel) of NeoOffice, but only one installation on each system.
Then you could access the same document data over the network with no application change needed. Whatever Mac you are on, just run NeoOffice.
The files associations would not be changed - system-to-system. A .doc file is a .doc file, and .odt file is an .odt file, etc.
Maybe I'm confused, so please let me know how your systems would be different.
I switch between PPC and Intel (my new MacBook Pro) frequently every day. I have the same network home directory and /Network/Applications on both, and using two different apps is cumbersome: I wouldn't be able to click to launch files since all the file associations would have to change everytime I moved from one machine to the other. UB's are perfect for that scenario.
-- Chris
Chris, I'm Confused,
Why would you have to switch applications?
You would ONLY install NeoOffice Intel on the Intel Mac, and NeoOffice PPC on the PPC Mac. One installation on each system. Yes, You would have to download two versions (PPC & Intel) of NeoOffice, but only one installation on each system.
The "problem" is that he doesn't install (any?) apps locally, only in the Network domain (/Network/Applications) so that all machines use the same copy of the same apps.
I'm still not sure how having the two apps, renamed as Patrick noted, would be a problem. If LaunchServices isn't smart enough to launch the version that will actually run on the current architecture (I wouldn't put it past LS, frankly)--remember, the PPC version won't run under Rosetta and the Intel version won't run on PPC--then surely using the LaunchServices override (Open with...Change All...) once on each machine would be sufficient. Or does that setting get stored in the user domain instead of the local domain on each Mac?
The other major drawback of a lipo'd situation is that the patches couldn't/wouldn't properly update the fat Neo; each only updates the specific architecture and they would wipe each other out....
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
The "problem" is that he doesn't install (any?) apps locally, only in the Network domain (/Network/Applications) so that all machines use the same copy of the same apps.
I install locally as minimal set as I possibly can, basically just drivers and some very ill-behaved apps that won't run off a network volume. Everything I install locally is done by a script that uses 'ditto' to copy the files from my NFS server. It's a hassle to add new apps to that script database since basically I have to test-install and use fslogger to see what files are involved and then extract them to the server. Bit of a pain to set up, but it pays off whenever I swap Macs in/out or have to rebuild a Mac.
Quote:
Or does that setting get stored in the user domain instead of the local domain on each Mac?
Good point. I assumed it was a per-user thing. I'll try that first before merging. Maybe it'll just work.
Quote:
The other major drawback of a lipo'd situation is that the patches couldn't/wouldn't properly update the fat Neo; each only updates the specific architecture and they would wipe each other out....
I guess I would just re-download the 2 full versions and reapply my merge script.
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2006 12:16 pm Post subject:
Yes, doing the lipo thing will break patches. It's possible to construct a universal binary with that solution from the two publicly available builds, but it's not supported.
We do not plan on doing a Universal release for a large number of reasons, but primarily because it explodes the size of the download for users without providing any benefit to most users. We're already saturating bandwidth of a number of mirrors...doubling our bandwidth needs for binary delivery is not feasible at this time.
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