Re: groff 1.25.0.rc1 on Ubuntu 26.04

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Subject: Re: groff 1.25.0.rc1 on Ubuntu 26.04
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Hi Bruno,

At 2026-07-23T23:48:28+0200, Bruno Haible wrote:
> G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> > groff 1.25.0 release candidate 1, 1.25.0.rc1
>=20
> Trying to build it on Ubuntu 26.04 fails within the "make check" pass:

Thanks for the report!

> [4] l.963: Undefined cross reference `Line Layout-pg'. Chapter 2 [5] [6]
> Writing index file groff.pg
> [7] l.1187: Undefined cross reference `Implementation Differences-pg'.
> l.1204: Undefined cross reference `Strings-pg'.
> l.1229: Undefined cross reference `Font Families-pg'. [8]
[...]

I'll trim the rest of the noise like this from TeX.  Much of it, I've
come to infer, is what we expect to see when one of the auxiliary files
that system uses for reference management is stale is desynced; TeX's
multi-pass formatting generally resolves these issues if the document's
internal references truly are well-formed, which I believe the current
state of "doc/groff.texi.in" to be.

And that is the veritable frontier of my knowledge of how TeX works in
this area.

Here's the "real failure", I believe.

> make[3]: Entering directory '/build/groff-1.25.0.rc1/build-64'
>   GEN      doc/groff.dvi
> ../../../../../doc/groff.dvi.t2d/doc!groff.t2d/dvi/src/groff.texi:13156: =
epsf.t
> ex not found, images will be ignored.
> @@image:impl ...not found, images will be ignored}
>                                                   @global @warnednoepsftr=
ue ...
> <argument> ...ayout,4in,,line layout diagram,.png}
>                                                   @unskip @hfil=20
> @centersub ...enalty @fi @line {@kern @leftskip #1
>                                                   @kern @rightskip }
> @\center ...{@hfil @ignorespaces #1@unskip @hfil }
>                                                   @let @centersub @relax=
=20
> l.13156 ...e-layout,4in,,line layout diagram,.png}
>                                                  =20
> ?=20
> ../../../../../doc/groff.dvi.t2d/doc!groff.t2d/dvi/src/groff.texi:13156: =
Emerge
> ncy stop.
> @@image:impl ...not found, images will be ignored}
>                                                   @global @warnednoepsftr=
ue ...
> <argument> ...ayout,4in,,line layout diagram,.png}
>                                                   @unskip @hfil=20
> @centersub ...enalty @fi @line {@kern @leftskip #1
>                                                   @kern @rightskip }
> @\center ...{@hfil @ignorespaces #1@unskip @hfil }
>                                                   @let @centersub @relax=
=20
> l.13156 ...e-layout,4in,,line layout diagram,.png}
>                                                  =20
> Output written on groff.dvi (136 pages, 426664 bytes).
> Transcript written on groff.log.
> /usr/bin/texi2dvi: etex exited with bad status, quitting.
> make[3]: *** [Makefile:20018: doc/groff.dvi] Error 1
> make[3]: Leaving directory '/build/groff-1.25.0.rc1/build-64'
> make[2]: *** [Makefile:16316: check-am] Error 2
> make[2]: Leaving directory '/build/groff-1.25.0.rc1/build-64'
> make[1]: *** [Makefile:13314: check-recursive] Error 1
> make[1]: Leaving directory '/build/groff-1.25.0.rc1/build-64'
> make: *** [Makefile:16319: check] Error 2
>=20
> My recommendation regarding epsf.tex is to take it from Gnulib, as
> described in
> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bison/2025-07/msg00004.html .

Not saying that this isn't good advice, but the root cause of this
problem, I believe, was my failure to properly manage "maintainer mode".

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2026-07/msg00010.html
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2026-07/msg00011.html

Building from the distribution archive should _not_ prompt a rebuild of
any of the rendered forms of groff's Texinfo manual.

The problem reported by Alexis did _not_ involve the distribution
archive, because that's not how NixOS prefers to build software, but it
did raise a matter that I believe to be closely related.

But adding the "line-layout" EPS/image to our Texinfo manual had a
significant impact on our build system, and I didn't manage to work
through all the possibilities before tagging 1.25.0.rc1.

Sorry about that.

An rc2 is now looking more likely to me than not for 1-2 C++ code
reasons upon which I'll elaborate soon.

If you have time, I can roll a distribution archive from my most recent
push (or you could produce one yourself via a Git checkout and "make
dist").  If that's something you'd like to do, please let me know.

I _was_ able to resolve the issue to my own satisfaction my using a
stripped-down Debian bullseye environment with schroot(1).  But external
verfication is always welcome.

Advice from those with greater expertise is as well.

Regards,
Branden

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