TclX issue on Fedora 43

[NTULINUX]

The 2.9 branch didn't want to configure due to a missing TclX error for me but master did.

Upon installing LinuxCNC master via my custom-made RPM (a system install, not rip) I noticed that axis and gmoccapy are both working, latency-test works but not the histogram:

can't find package Tclx
while executing
"package require Tclx"
(procedure "load_packages" line 2)
invoked from within
"load_packages"
invoked from within
"if ![info exists ::LH(start)] {
set_defaults
config
progress "Loading packages"
load_packages
signal trap SIGINT finish
progress "Making g..."
(file "/usr/bin/latency-histogram" line 842)

[rmu75]

after chatting on IRC, seems to be related to tcl 9.0 (no tclx yet for tcl 9.0). but doesn't work for tcl8.x either because it doesn't find blt. probably won't fix.

[BsAtHome]

The issue is that Fedora moved to Tcl/Tk 9. That includes the python tkinter interface, which is linked with Tcl/Tk 9 and that must match LinuxCNC's.

I have not (yet) backported the changes required to run 2.9 again on Fedora. I thought I could get away with it... However, this issue is a confirmation that it probably is a good idea that I do backport the changes :-)

Edit: and I will look into the Tclx issue too.

[NTULINUX]

Thanks, yeah I was going to rebuild blt and bwidget against tcl/tk8.6 from fedora instead but ending up going down a rabbit hole. I'm going to wait until things settle down before trying again.

Another problem..

fedora@fedora-kde:~$ tclsh
% package require Tclx     
can't find package Tclx
% exit

fedora@fedora-kde:~$ tclsh8
% package require Tclx
8.4
% exit

fedora@fedora-kde:~$ tclsh
% package require BWidget
1.10.1
% exit

fedora@fedora-kde:~$ tclsh8
% package require BWidget
can't find package BWidget
% exit

TclX only works with tcl8.6, but BWidget only works with tcl9...

I opened a bug report for upstream:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2437570

[NTULINUX]

Pushed the issue along further by making my own bwidget package, now hitting:

checking python version... OK
checking match between tk and Tkinter versions... TCL mismatch: 8.6 vs 9.0
configure: error: Python requires use of Tcl 9.0 and Tk 9.0.
Install this version and specify --with-tclConfig and --with-tkConfig if necessary

[BsAtHome]

As I said, this needs to be fixed in LinuxCNC and not upstream. For the master branch it has been fixed. Well, until you discovered an issue with the histogram, which I said I'd look into.

For 2.9 branch, all the changes need to be backported. You cannot use Tcl/Tk 8 on Fedora 42/43 because tkinter (python) is bound to Tcl/Tk 9. So the fix can only be to update LinuxCNC to work with Tcl/Tk 9. And that has been done for master.

[BsAtHome]

The Tclx issue is relatively easy to solve by using an if { [ info tclversion ] < "9.0" } around the package statement.

The real problem is apparently BLT. It is apparently not available for 9.0. It hasn't seen updates for ages (current version 2.4z is from 2002). The "official" docs say it doesn't even work with 8.6. That it is unavailable for 9.0 may be an issue that cannot be resolved easily. I'll have to dig deeper for that.

Programs using BLT:

• scripts/latency-plot
• scripts/latency-histogram
• scripts/hal-histogram

[NTULINUX]

The Tclx issue is relatively easy to solve by using an if { [ info tclversion ] < "9.0" } around the package statement.

The real problem is apparently BLT. It is apparently not available for 9.0. It hasn't seen updates for ages (current version 2.4z is from 2002). The "official" docs say it doesn't even work with 8.6. That it is unavailable for 9.0 may be an issue that cannot be resolved easily. I'll have to dig deeper for that.

Programs using BLT:

• scripts/latency-plot
• scripts/latency-histogram
• scripts/hal-histogram

Yeah, even the forks of BLT like the one Gentoo uses only goes up to 8.6.

This is what Gentoo uses:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/wize/files/ -> blt-src-2.5.3.zip

Using that if statement you mentioned earlier, won't that just break everything that actually does use TclX and you're using version 9?