Re: how to safely install libc6
Caution: Don't take any of the following as 'the truth'. it's mostly
guesses i've made from reading docs and from experimenting on my
systems.
On 15 May 1997, Ed Donovan wrote:
> Here's a slightly old thread I'm continuing; I'm very curious how
> people are dealing with this. I usually follow 'unstable,' in part
> because it largely is quite stable. I hold off on things that look
> like more trouble, like libc6. Much advice recommends not using it yet
> on important systems. I tried to avoid it, but fell for ldso 1.9.2,
> not realizing it (apparently) commits me to the libc6 development
> environment.
I don't think that's the case. ldso doesn't depend on either libc5-dev
or libc6-dev. According to the notes in /usr/doc/ld.so the only major
incompatibility is with a.out (libc4) programs. My reading of the notes
indicates that it cant even run a.out binaries any more, but i might
have misread that.
> I have not installed libc6 yet, and right now my compiles fail. All
> the binaries generated give "No such file or directory" errors,
> because they can't link, I believe. I hesitate to go ahead and install
> the libc6 packages, though, if things might become more unstable. I'd
> like to build a new kernel at the moment, and wouldn't want to do so
> with a C library that wasn't ready for prime time.
it's safe to have the shared libraries for libc6 and libc5 installed
at the same time, just as it was safe to have both libc4 and libc5
installed. It only gets complicated when you want to do development for
both libc5 and libc6 on the same machine.
suggestion:
install libc6, libc5, libc5-dev (and other libc5 development stuff(*)),
and ldso-1.9.2.
don't install libc6-dev (or related stuff) or the altdev-libc5 stuff.
You'll have to either install stuff manually with dpkg or put quite a
few packages on HOLD status with dselect.
Doing this will give you a system capabale of developing for libc5, and
also capable of running libc6 programs.
Alternatively, a libc6 development system which can also run libc5
programs. Or if you have two debian boxes make one of each.
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be libc6 compatible versions of
ncurses-dev and other important dev packages yet...maybe they just
haven't arrived on my mirror...maybe the intention is that altdev-libc5
provides libc5-dev to satisfy ncurses-dev's dependancy.
(*) 'stuff (noun): highly technical term meaning "thingies"' :-)
craig
--
craig sanders
networking consultant Available for casual or contract
temporary autonomous zone system administration tasks.
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