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Comment by tempodox | Hacker News Reader

I just wish we could build and run it on macOS 12. The bootstrapping compiler required (sbcl-1.2.11) is nonfunctional there.

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What's the problem with building on macOS 12?

I was able to build it for M1 without any issue. You just need a previous lisp to bootstrap, a previous release or even clisp can be used, for example.

I almost always build it from source. There are useful build options that you can use.

I do most of my work with LispWorks Pro, but SBCL is also a valuable part of my tool set. Much gratitude to the developers!

I made an asdf-vm installer for it that I've been keeping up to date: https://github.com/smashedtoatoms/asdf-sbcl

If you don't want to use it, it installs from source, so you might be able to look at the source to see an example of how to build it yourself. It works on intel and arm macs.

I've looked into the repo and it seems to download sbcl-1.2.11 as the bootstrapping compiler for x86_64. That is exactly what doesn't work on my machine (macOS 12, x86_64). The problem is getting a bootstrapping compiler that works on that platform.

Uh, cmucl required an existing cmucl, SBCL was explicitly forked of that to simplify the bootstrapping by allowing any standard compliant CL compiler as host. On MacOS Clozure CL might be the obvious choice.

Well, that's the idea at least, I haven't actually tried it (long time ago, I did compile sbcl with CLISP on Linux/x86-64, which worked fine).

I have run into this problem too, maybe someone could update the official binaries to something newer.

At least 2.2.7 does, I have built it myself on my M2 Air. What is your issue?

What did you use for bootstrapping? sbcl-1.2.11 does not work (on x86_64).

Some other SBCL version, I don't know what I had installed on x86_64. I can look on monday, what it was. Probably the 1.2.11 that can be found on the download site. What was the issue you were running into?

Alternatively, you can try ABCL, which should run everywhere due to be JVM-based.

Thinking about it, have you made sure, that sbcl-1.2.11 works at all for you before trying to build? I remember it took a bit of trying due to gatekeeper. I had to allow both the sbcl executable as well as the core file, before it was fully functional. After that, you should be able to bootstrap from it.

That is the problem, the sbcl-1.2.11 binary doesn't work at all for me, even after telling gatekeeper to allow the executable and core file.

I have suggested on sbcl-devel that the link to the binary should be removed from the Download web page, people would then look in a third-party package collection for a bootstrap binary.

The binary does work (at least on Big Sur). It would be nice though, if there were signed executables available. Not sure what I did to make it work, if I can remember that required some trial-and-error.

Is there a reason you need a different version of the binary to compile it? I mean, if you were to compile gcc, would you insist you had a different version of the compiler to do that?

Hm, Roswell installs it pretty straightforwardly.

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