[syslinux] check-gnu-efi.sh: print the output of build-gnu-efi.sh

[Ady]

> Hi
> 
> On Mon, Dec 22, 2014 at 8:29 AM, Ady <ady-sf at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Using a consistent version / commit of gnu-efi makes sense. Otherwise,
> > the resulting behavior could be changing (or the build might fail for
> > some reason), according to whichever version / commit is "freely" used.
> 
> As an active package maintainer I strongly believe in idea that
> software should use system packages as much as possible. The reasons
> are:
>  - embedding libraries makes project bloating and the build system
> more complicated.
>  - package maintainers tend to provide higher quality support for
> packages than alone developers. System libraries get bug/security
> fixes, version updates faster than libraries embedded into projects.
> And embedded libraries are usually left at some obsolete version just
> because developer have no time to update it.
>  - compiling a project with already-built system libraries is faster
> than compile embedded libraries each time.
> 
> I am not an syslinux/efi expert but for me it looks like syslinux can
> be perfectly fine using system gnu-efi library. For example in Linux
> Arch both refind and gummiboot use the system library and never had
> problems with it.
> 

There are some inconveniences with your perspective.  

You are implicitly assuming that every distro would use an up-to-date 
gnu-efi. Perhaps this might be fine for ArchLinux, but not for most 
others.  

You are implicitly assuming that the resulting Syslinux binaries would 
work correctly with whichever (recent) version of gnu-efi would be 
already installed in the distro. ArchLinux already attempted to do 
this, and at some point the gnu-efi code broke Syslinux's behavior in 
ArchLinux.  

Syslinux upstream used to use whichever version of gnu-efi was 
available to the OS, and users / testers complained that Syslinux 
failed. The reason was that the gnu-efi version available for them at 
the time was not new-ish enough; updating it would solve their 
problems. This is still true and valid for many distros.  

So, theoretical advantages are excellent, until reality forces a 
different decision.  

Syslinux upstream needs to "impose" which gnu-efi commit/version is 
being used because the resulting behavior changes with it. Some of the 
code contributed to gnu-efi during the last year was originated by 
Syslinux developers / testers / contributors. Using an "unknown" 
gnu-efi would result in unexpected or unknown behavior, and would make 
troubleshooting / development harder.  


Patches are welcome here. They need to work as expected and 
consistently for as many cases as possible (not just one particular 
distro).  


BTW, see (or, better yet, their respective txt versions in the latest 
release):
http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Doc/distrib
http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Doc/building
http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Common_Problems#Official_Binaries

Regards,
Ady.