On 02.24 Jason Straight wrote:
> I'm more concerned about the problems that might arise simply because the
> packages in the distro were built with it. What problems that may occur, if
> one get's into the habbit of making binary incompatible packages at every
> distro release it kind of renders the whole idea of rpm useless. There will
> be rpm's for i386 using glibc 2.1 with gcc2.96, 2.2 with gcc 2.96, 2.2 with
> 2.96 and 2.2 with gcc 3.0 eventually. May as well just figure on using source
> for everything. While I personally use source for 99% of my software that
> doesn't come with a distro this isn't really a problem, but it's a nighmare
> for uninitiated users. It's even more of a mess than the differences between
> different versions of windows.
I agree this can be a problem. But C is a minor issue, and also glibc.
See, you do everytime you jump from 7.2 to cooker. The first thing you must
install is glibc2.2. And everything works. They are binary compatible, AFAIK.
(when jumpin from 2.1 to 2.2, what worked in 2.1 works in 2.2, the reverse
can be a problem, perhaps). C is C and has a well defined ABI. The only
problem is using features in newer glibc that are not present in previous.
The BigIssue(tm) are g++ and libstdc++. And you will not have an stable
g++ ABI until 3.0. gcc-3.0 is already branched (whatever that word means
with regards to tree stability...), anybody knows if its ABI is definitive,
with only minor changes waiting ?
--
J.A. Magallon $> cd pub
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] $> more beer
Linux werewolf 2.4.2-ac3 #1 SMP Fri Feb 23 21:48:09 CET 2001 i686
