Opam installer script trying to install a very old opam and OCaml compiler

Ecosystem
1

Is it normal that the opam install page suggests using a script that downloads and installs opam 1.2.2 and OCaml 4.05.0 by default?

I just installed Ubuntu 24.04 on a new VM, copied the command from the page and ran it:

bash -c "sh <(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ocaml/opam/master/shell/install.sh)"

Then I got:

Downloading opam...
You don't have write access to /usr/local/bin: sudo may ask for your password
[sudo] password for user:
Initializing with compiler 4.05.0
Checking for available remotes: rsync and local.
- you won't be able to use git repositories unless you install the git command on your system.
- you won't be able to use mercurial repositories unless you install the hg command on your system.
- you won't be able to use darcs repositories unless you install the darcs command on your system.

[WARNING] Recommended external solver aspcud not found.
[WARNING] Recommended dependencies -- most packages rely on these:
     - make
     - m4
     - cc
=-=- Fetching repository information =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
[default] synchronized from https://opam.ocaml.org
[NOTE] The repository 'default' will be *permanently* redirected to https://opam.ocaml.org/1.2.2 (opam-version < "2.0~")
[default] synchronized from https://opam.ocaml.org/1.2.2
=-=- Installing compiler 4.05.0 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
[compiler.get] https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/archive/4.05.0.tar.gz downloaded Now compiling OCaml. This may take a while, please bear with us...

Could it be an issue caused by the lack of make and a C compiler?

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2

It’s definitely not normal, indeed! The script output you’ve posted is what you’d get from having had opam_installer.sh in the URL rather than install.sh - are you absolutely positive you downloaded install.sh?

Note that there are old versions of the install page for OPAM 1.2 and for OPAM 1.1 which refer to that script, but neither of those should have been displayed for the install link you posted above?

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That’s a very good remark!

I definitely cannot reproduce it, so I’m assuming this is what happened:

  • I google for something like opam install binary;
  • I mis-clicked the second link on the results (https://opam.ocaml.org/doc/1.2/Install.html, with the extra 1.2 in the middle), but because both have the same title and overall layout, I didn’t notice the 1.2 in the page;
  • I copied the wget command for opam_installer.sh and got the weird results.
  • Because my VM didn’t have Guest Additions, I couldn’t copy the command back to my host, so I re-googled to get it and ask the question, and didn’t notice it was the “right” page this time.

That’s the most reasonable explanation I can provide.

So, other than maybe suggesting that the old documentation pages include a “warning: obsolete” message somewhere, there’s nothing to be done. Sorry for the noise and thanks for the remark!

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Don’t worry at all - I don’t think it’s noise (it happened to you!). I opened Remove or suppress crawling for the OPAM 1.1 and 1.2 manuals · Issue #236 · ocaml-opam/opam2web · GitHub to remind us to at least update robots.txt for opam.ocaml.org or just remove those manuals.

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