Thread: BUG #18194: Missing install instructions

The following bug has been logged on the website:

Bug reference:      18194
Logged by:          John Pace
Email address:      johnpace95@mail.de
PostgreSQL version: 16.1
Operating system:   Rocky Linux 9
Description:

1.
The file
https://github.com/postgres/postgres/blob/master/README
says you will find instructions to build PostgreSQL in the file INSTALL, but
this files does not exists. 

https://github.com/postgres/postgres/blob/master/README.git
refers to
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/installation.html
for install instructions.

So please change the file README.

2.
Also please provide a list of required packages. 
For Rocky Linux 9 I used this command line to install required packages:
dnf install git make gcc libicu-devel bison flex readline-devel zlib-devel
perl-FindBin perl-File-Compare

The configure-script shows some of these packages, but not all. I had to
find a lot of the required packages by examining the errors of make.

PG Bug reporting form <noreply@postgresql.org> writes:
> The file
> https://github.com/postgres/postgres/blob/master/README
> says you will find instructions to build PostgreSQL in the file INSTALL, but
> this files does not exists.

I guess you read but didn't absorb what it says in README.git?

    In a release or snapshot tarball of PostgreSQL, a documentation file named
    INSTALL will appear in this directory.  However, this file is not stored in
    git and so will not be present if you are using a git checkout.

> So please change the file README.

It's correct as it stands for our current distribution processes.
(Things probably will change in v17 because we plan to change what
is in our distributed tarballs, but we won't change that in
released branches.)

> 2. Also please provide a list of required packages.

We would need a different list for every operating system out there,
even different distros of Linux.  And it'd vary depending on what
build options you select.  So nope, that's not likely to happen.
If you don't want to deal with figuring that out based on the list
of requirements in the manual, I'd suggest using a prepackaged build
from your OS distributor instead of building from source.

            regards, tom lane

OK, I missed this sentence
 > However, this file is not stored in git and so will not be present if 
you are using a git checkout.

Since the content of the file README is wrong when using GitHub (it 
refers to a file INSTALL which is not available in GitHub) you should 
consider removing this file from GitHub, as you already did with the 
file INSTALL. Especially because this wrong file README is shown for 
everyone when viewing your repository:
https://github.com/postgres/postgres

Actually I was unhappy because your list of requirements did not 
mentioned these required packages:
libicu, perl-FindBin, perl-File-Compare
Even your configure script was not aware of them. I only "saw" the 
required packages based on the compiler errors.

I understand that you can't provide a list of exact package names for 
each distribution, but please add the missing packages as stated above. 
Thanks.

Am 13.11.2023 um 22:05 schrieb Tom Lane:
> PG Bug reporting form <noreply@postgresql.org> writes:
>> The file
>> https://github.com/postgres/postgres/blob/master/README
>> says you will find instructions to build PostgreSQL in the file INSTALL, but
>> this files does not exists.
> 
> I guess you read but didn't absorb what it says in README.git?
> 
>      In a release or snapshot tarball of PostgreSQL, a documentation file named
>      INSTALL will appear in this directory.  However, this file is not stored in
>      git and so will not be present if you are using a git checkout.
> 
>> So please change the file README.
> 
> It's correct as it stands for our current distribution processes.
> (Things probably will change in v17 because we plan to change what
> is in our distributed tarballs, but we won't change that in
> released branches.)
> 
>> 2. Also please provide a list of required packages.
> 
> We would need a different list for every operating system out there,
> even different distros of Linux.  And it'd vary depending on what
> build options you select.  So nope, that's not likely to happen.
> If you don't want to deal with figuring that out based on the list
> of requirements in the manual, I'd suggest using a prepackaged build
> from your OS distributor instead of building from source.
> 
>             regards, tom lane