Purpose: Document common problems attempting to compile Tcl or some extension.
I. When I run configure I get: loading cache ./config.cache checking for ranlib... : checking whether cross-compiling... yes . .
Well, I would point you to some threads at http://www.deja.com/ , (You can usually trim most of the junk out of a Deja pathname, as it seems to usually be related to the search that lead you to the info, and not the thread itself - DKF) but they use such bizarre pathnames that it causes Wiki to have heartburn. So here's what I can tell you:
The cross-compiling yes message is generally trouble. Cross-compiling is a feature of at least gcc (and perhaps other compilers as well) where executable code for platform A is generated on platform B. The reason that tests cannot be run is that in general processor B can't execute code for processor A. For instance, if your SGI computer/compiler were generating MSDOS executable code, it is unlikely that configure would know how to run MSDOS code.
Other reasons configure think it's cross-compiling:
a. the source tree is NFS-mounted from a foreign OS, or b. someone duplicated a source tree from a foreign OS, there will often be enough configuration information from the foreign OS to make configure think it's cross-compiling
JC, regarding the heartburn mentioned above: see the archive of *-URL messages for pointers to deja.com which work: http://www.purl.org/mini/cgi-bin/url/ (like [L1 ] or [L2 ]).
2. See http://www.tcl.tk/doc/howto/compile.html - '''How to Compile Tcl''' for Unix, Windows, and MacOS. 3. Be certain to have X11 loaded on Unix and similar systems before attempting to build Tk and related exensions.