Failure passing MAKEFLAGS to catkin_make_isolated on FreeBSD

I’m attempting to install ROS Kinetic on FreeBSD 12.1 (at my peril).

I’m following the ‘from source’ instructions at: http://wiki.ros.org/kinetic/Installation/Source

I am performing step 2.1.3 (Building the catkin workspace), which directs invoking catkin_make_isolated as follows: ./src/catkin/bin/catkin_make_isolated --install -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

I get the following output:

==> Processing catkin package: 'catkin'
...
==> make -j4 -l4 in '$PATH/ros_catkin_ws/build_isolated/catkin'
...
<== Failed to process package 'catkin':
Command '['make', '-j4', '-l4']' returned non-zero exit status 2

This seems to be due to FreeBSD make not having the loading average flag -l.

I have tried both setting the MAKEFLAGS and ROS_PARALLEL_JOBS environment variables to avoid setting the -l flag. E.g., set ROS_PARALLEL_JOBS='-j4'.

The result is that it sends a flag -pn to make, as follows:

==> Processing catkin package: 'catkin'
...
==> make -j4 in '$PATH/ros_catkin_ws/build_isolated/catkin'
...
<== Failed to process package 'catkin':
Command '['make', '-pn']' returned non-zero exit status 2

Interestingly, it appears that it’s invoking make -j4, but then says that the actual flag sent to make is -pn.

I have also attempted to set the flags when invoking catkin_make_isolated, but get the same result (with -pn). For example: ./src/catkin/bin/catkin_make_isolated --install -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -j4

[dirk-thomas]

The make flags -j and -j are only added conditionally, see https://github.com/ros/catkin/blob/4d4467502337a76b23a14372cc6659f12ee68d5b/python/catkin/builder.py#L323-L325. If you pass job flags in any other way the logic won’t be triggered (and doesn’t add the -l flag which isn’t supported on your platform).

Possible options:

• you pass --make-args -j4
  • (the argument must contain a valid job argument otherwise the default logic might get triggered)
• set MAKEFLAGS=-j4 (the command won’t show these since they are set as an environment variable)
  • (the argument must contain a valid job argument otherwise the default logic might get triggered)
• set ROS_PARALLEL_JOBS=-j4
  • these argument are passed as is to the command and therefore will be shown and it doesn’t matter what they contain - it always overrides the default logic

The -pn argument is likely coming from this invocation: https://github.com/ros/catkin/blob/4d4467502337a76b23a14372cc6659f12ee68d5b/python/catkin/builder.py#L458 which is trying to determine the available targets. Maybe that option is not supported by make on your platform either? If that is the case can you please post the version of make you are using. Are there any alternative options in your make version to enumerate the available targets?

[dirk-thomas]

The existing options are in the form of --use-* since they also pass different arguments to CMake to change the generator.

I don’t mind either or. Naming the new option --use-gmake sounds good to me too.