> On 12 Jun 1998, Ulrich Drepper wrote:
>
> I can shut up no longer. I __HAD__ all the sources for all the programs
> and utilities that ran on this system. All of the programs and utilities
> that ran on this system were compiled on this system. I did not start
> with a 'standard' distribution. I started with Version 0.99 obtained on
> floppies from Yggdarsil (or however you spell it).
I started out with 2.0 on this machine, slackware binaries. From then on
I have compiled everything myself including glibc. Currently about 70% of
my binaries are glibc linked, The only big package that remains is X, and
I'm very hestitant about recompiling that due to its size. (I don't use X
much anyway).
> I installed glibc and now I have nothing. No sources except the kernel
> will compile.
All the modern GNU stuff compiles without modifaction usually. Older ones
may require some ``header tweaking''. As for non-gnu stuff, header
conflicts are the biggest problems. The one big problem I remember
spending hours on was gcl (GNU Common Lisp), and that's probably already
fixed by now. Apart from that, I had no serious problems.
> I obtained a 'standard' distribution from a CDROM and installed it on
> another system. Sources provided on that CDROM will not compile with the
> tools provided with that distribution. This is because that distribution
> had glibc.
>
> I can't even compile a new version of ld.so to get rid of the startup
> error message caused by glibc's putting a TEXT file instead of a shared
> library.
Never had that problem, did you read all the documentation for migration
on a Linux system. When I migratated, I don't believe the HOWTO and all
that existed even, I just read some document on gnu.org.
> It will probably be years before there are any Linux distributions that
> will compile the sources for the binaries provided by these distributions.
>
> This is not how migration should have occurred. New tools should have
> at least emulated the capabilities of the older tools. This was not
> done. The result is a lot of angry developers.
I agree that more could have been done to ease migration. But the whole
point of creating an entire new library interface (which is what glibc is
defined to be, a major change in interface), is to change the interface!
Somewhere along the line, you have to say, enough is enough and remove
all the backward compatibility stuff, and that is what they did.
> I am surprised that Alan is just discovering how awful the situation is.
> POSIX compliance is only ONE of the objectives of a 'C' runtime library.
> There are many others, primarily usefulness.
I wouldn't call it aweful, its doing the Right Thing(tm), libc5 was never
designed to be a lasting standard, glibc is (I may be wrong about this),
and in order to make it lasting, all the obsolete/superceeded interfaces
have to be removed.
> Cheers,
> Dick Johnson
> ***** FILE SYSTEM MODIFIED *****
> Penguin : Linux version 2.1.105 on an i586 machine (66.15 BogoMips).
> Warning : It's hard to remain at the trailing edge of technology.
>
>
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>
Andreas/Mortiis/Dionysos
-- andreas@mnsinc.com-- "The church bells toll a melancholy round, Calling the people to some other prayers, Some other gloominess, more dreadful cares, More hearkening to the sermon's horrid sound. Surely the mind of man is closely bound In some black spell; seeing that each one tears Himself from fireside joys, and Lydian airs, And converse high of those with glory crown'd. Still, still they toll, and I should feel a damp,-- A chill as from a tomb, did I not know That they are dying like an outburnt lamp; That 'tis their signing, wailing ere they go Into oblivion;--that fresh flowers will grow, And many glories of immortal stamp." -- Keats "Sonnet: Written in disgust of vulgar superstition"
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