Re: Upgrading gcc

On Tue, 04 Aug 2026 17:44:28 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> There is, however, a file called ConfigureChecks.cmake.

Files with names ending in “.cmake” are usually “modules” included
from the actual CMake build scripts for various special functions
(e.g. doing specific checks needed to detect the presence of
particular libraries). The CMake build scripts are the files called
“CMakeLists.txt” you will commonly find scattered through the source
directories. The top-level one is the main one, which includes the
others.

> I've an old-school guy who's comfortable enough with make that I've
> never found a reason to get into the complexities of cmake.

Think of CMake as a “meta-build” system -- a system to drive build
systems. On Linux/Unix, it typically generates files to drive GNU
Make, and I think there is also the option for Ninja as an alternative
back-end.

On other platforms, it can generate Visual Studio project files (on
Windows) and XCode project files (on macOS) for driving the
corresponding build tools endemic to those platforms.