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1 Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU C Library
2
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3This document tries to answer questions a user might have when installing
4and using glibc. Please make sure you read this before sending questions or
5bug reports to the maintainers.
61952351 6
f12944ec 7The GNU C library is very complex. The installation process has not been
fdacb17d 8completely automated; there are too many variables. You can do substantial
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9damage to your system by installing the library incorrectly. Make sure you
10understand what you are undertaking before you begin.
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11
12If you have any questions you think should be answered in this document,
13please let me know.
14
15 --drepper@cygnus.com
16\f
17? Compiling glibc
18
19?? What systems does the GNU C Library run on?
20
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21{UD} This is difficult to answer. The file `README' lists the architectures
22GNU libc was known to run on *at some time*. This does not mean that it
23still can be compiled and run on them now.
61952351 24
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25The systems glibc is known to work on as of this release, and most probably
26in the future, are:
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27
28 *-*-gnu GNU Hurd
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29 i[3456]86-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on Intel
30 m68k-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on Motorola 680x0
31 alpha-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on DEC Alpha
61952351 32 powerpc-*-linux-gnu Linux and MkLinux on PowerPC systems
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33 sparc-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on SPARC
34 sparc64-*-linux-gnu Linux-2.x on UltraSPARC
a35cb74d 35 arm-*-none ARM standalone systems
cb0509a8 36 arm-*-linux Linux-2.x on ARM
a35cb74d 37 arm-*-linuxaout Linux-2.x on ARM using a.out binaries
61952351 38
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39Ports to other Linux platforms are in development, and may in fact work
40already, but no one has sent us success reports for them. Currently no
41ports to other operating systems are underway, although a few people have
42expressed interest.
61952351 43
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44If you have a system not listed above (or in the `README' file) and you are
45really interested in porting it, contact
61952351 46
b9b49b44 47 <bug-glibc@gnu.org>
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48
49?? What compiler do I need to build GNU libc?
50
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51{UD} You must use GNU CC to compile GNU libc. A lot of extensions of GNU CC
52are used to increase portability and speed.
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53
54GNU CC is found, like all other GNU packages, on
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2eb45444 56 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu
f12944ec 57
2eb45444 58and the many mirror sites. ftp.gnu.org is always overloaded, so try to find
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59a local mirror first.
60
ceb27555 61You should always try to use the latest official release. Older versions
f12944ec 62may not have all the features GNU libc requires. The current releases of
a379e56a 63egcs (1.0.3 and 1.1) and GNU CC (2.8.1) should work with the GNU C library
c882585f 64(for powerpc see ?powerpc; for ARM see ?arm).
61952351 65
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66{ZW} You may have problems if you try to mix code compiled with
67EGCS and with GCC 2.8.1. See ?exception for details.
68
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69?? When I try to compile glibc I get only error messages.
70 What's wrong?
71
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72{UD} You definitely need GNU make to translate GNU libc. No other make
73program has the needed functionality.
61952351 74
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75We recommend version GNU make version 3.75 or 3.77. Versions before 3.75
76have bugs and/or are missing features. Version 3.76 has bugs which
77appear when building big projects like GNU libc. 3.76.1 appears to work but
d8a167a5 78some people have reported problems. If you build GNU make 3.77 from source,
c882585f 79please read ?make first.
61952351 80
d89e7a96 81?? Do I need a special linker or assembler?
61952351 82
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83{ZW} If you want a shared library, you need a linker and assembler that
84understand all the features of ELF, including weak and versioned symbols.
85The static library can be compiled with less featureful tools, but lacks key
86features such as NSS.
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88For Linux or Hurd, you want binutils 2.8.1.0.23, 2.9.1, or 2.9.1.0.15 or
89higher. These are the only versions we've tested and found reliable. Other
90versions after 2.8.1.0.23 may work but we don't recommend them, especially
91not when C++ is involved. Earlier versions do not work at all.
7fd18ea2 92
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93Other operating systems may come with system tools that have all the
94necessary features, but this is moot because glibc hasn't been ported to
95them.
61952351 96
8619129f 97??powerpc Which compiler should I use for powerpc?
4775243a 98
f304af81 99{GK} You want to use egcs 1.1 or later (together with the right versions
f12944ec 100of all the other tools, of course).
4775243a 101
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102In fact, egcs 1.1 has a bug that causes linuxthreads to be
103miscompiled, resulting in segmentation faults when using condition
104variables. There is a temporary patch at:
4775243a 105
f304af81 106<http://discus.anu.edu.au/~geoffk/egcs-3.diff>
4775243a 107
f304af81 108Later versions of egcs may fix this problem.
4775243a 109
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110??arm Which tools should I use for ARM?
111
112{PB} You should use egcs 1.1 or a later version. For ELF systems some
113changes are needed to the compiler; a patch against egcs-1.1.x can be found
114at:
115
116<ftp://ftp.netwinder.org/users/p/philb/egcs-1.1.1pre2-diff-981126>
117
118Binutils 2.9.1.0.16 or later is also required.
119
d89e7a96 120?? Do I need some more things to compile the GNU C Library?
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121
122{UD} Yes, there are some more :-).
123
124* GNU gettext. This package contains the tools needed to construct
125 `message catalog' files containing translated versions of system
2eb45444 126 messages. See ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu or better any mirror
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127 site. (We distribute compiled message catalogs, but they may not be
128 updated in patches.)
129
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130* Some files are built with special tools. E.g., files ending in .gperf
131 need a `gperf' program. The GNU version (now available in a separate
132 package, formerly only as part of libg++) is known to work while some
133 vendor versions do not.
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134
135 You should not need these tools unless you change the source files.
136
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137* Perl 5 is needed if you wish to test an installation of GNU libc
138 as the primary C library.
bd355af0 139
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140* When compiling for Linux, the header files of the Linux kernel must
141 be available to the compiler as <linux/*.h> and <asm/*.h>.
142
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143* lots of disk space (~170MB for i?86-linux; more for RISC platforms,
144 as much as 400MB).
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145
146* plenty of time. Compiling just the shared and static libraries for
147 i?86-linux takes approximately 1h on an i586@133, or 2.5h on
148 i486@66, or 4.5h on i486@33. Multiply this by 1.5 or 2.0 if you
149 build profiling and/or the highly optimized version as well. For
150 Hurd systems times are much higher.
151
152 You should avoid compiling in a NFS mounted filesystem. This is
153 very slow.
154
155 James Troup <J.J.Troup@comp.brad.ac.uk> reports a compile time of
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156 45h34m for a full build (shared, static, and profiled) on Atari
157 Falcon (Motorola 68030 @ 16 Mhz, 14 Mb memory) and Jan Barte
158 <yann@plato.uni-paderborn.de> reports 22h48m on Atari TT030
159 (Motorola 68030 @ 32 Mhz, 34 Mb memory)
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160
161 If you have some more measurements let me know.
162
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163?? What version of the Linux kernel headers should be used?
164
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165{AJ,UD} The headers from the most recent Linux kernel should be used. The
166headers used while compiling the GNU C library and the kernel binary used
167when using the library do not need to match. The GNU C library runs without
168problems on kernels that are older than the kernel headers used. The other
169way round (compiling the GNU C library with old kernel headers and running
170on a recent kernel) does not necessarily work. For example you can't use
171new kernel features when using old kernel headers for compiling the GNU C
172library.
173
ceb27555 174{ZW} Even if you are using a 2.0 kernel on your machine, we recommend you
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175compile GNU libc with 2.2 kernel headers. That way you won't have to
176recompile libc if you ever upgrade to kernel 2.2. To tell libc which
ceb27555 177headers to use, give configure the --with-headers switch
440d13e2 178(e.g. --with-headers=/usr/src/linux-2.2.0/include).
ceb27555 179
440d13e2 180Note that you must configure the 2.2 kernel if you do this, otherwise libc
62595351 181will be unable to find <linux/version.h>. Just change the current directory
440d13e2 182to the root of the 2.2 tree and do `make include/linux/version.h'.
ceb27555 183
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184?? The compiler hangs while building iconvdata modules. What's
185 wrong?
186
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187{ZW} This is a problem with old versions of GCC. Initialization of large
188static arrays is very slow. The compiler will eventually finish; give it
189time.
f12944ec 190
a379e56a 191The problem is fixed in egcs 1.1 but not in earlier releases.
d111572f 192
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193?? When I run `nm -u libc.so' on the produced library I still
194 find unresolved symbols. Can this be ok?
195
f12944ec 196{UD} Yes, this is ok. There can be several kinds of unresolved symbols:
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197
198* magic symbols automatically generated by the linker. These have names
199 like __start_* and __stop_*
200
201* symbols starting with _dl_* come from the dynamic linker
202
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203* weak symbols, which need not be resolved at all (fabs for example)
204
205Generally, you should make sure you find a real program which produces
206errors while linking before deciding there is a problem.
207
208??addon What are these `add-ons'?
209
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210{UD} To avoid complications with export rules or external source code some
211optional parts of the libc are distributed as separate packages (e.g., the
212crypt package, see ?crypt).
61952351 213
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214To use these packages as part of GNU libc, just unpack the tarfiles in the
215libc source directory and tell the configuration script about them using the
216--enable-add-ons option. If you give just --enable-add-ons configure tries
217to find all the add-on packages in your source tree. This may not work. If
218it doesn't, or if you want to select only a subset of the add-ons, give a
219comma-separated list of the add-ons to enable:
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220
221 configure --enable-add-ons=crypt,linuxthreads
222
223for example.
224
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225Add-ons can add features (including entirely new shared libraries), override
226files, provide support for additional architectures, and just about anything
227else. The existing makefiles do most of the work; only some few stub rules
228must be written to get everything running.
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229
230?? My XXX kernel emulates a floating-point coprocessor for me.
231 Should I enable --with-fp?
232
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233{ZW} An emulated FPU is just as good as a real one, as far as the C library
234is concerned. You only need to say --without-fp if your machine has no way
235to execute floating-point instructions.
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236
237People who are interested in squeezing the last drop of performance
238out of their machine may wish to avoid the trap overhead, but this is
239far more trouble than it's worth: you then have to compile
240*everything* this way, including the compiler's internal libraries
241(libgcc.a for GNU C), because the calling conventions change.
242
243?? When compiling GNU libc I get lots of errors saying functions
244 in glibc are duplicated in libgcc.
245
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246{EY} This is *exactly* the same problem that I was having. The problem was
247due to the fact that configure didn't correctly detect that the linker flag
248--no-whole-archive was supported in my linker. In my case it was because I
249had run ./configure with bogus CFLAGS, and the test failed.
61952351 250
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251One thing that is particularly annoying about this problem is that once this
252is misdetected, running configure again won't fix it unless you first delete
253config.cache.
61952351 254
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255{UD} Starting with glibc-2.0.3 there should be a better test to avoid some
256problems of this kind. The setting of CFLAGS is checked at the very
257beginning and if it is not usable `configure' will bark.
61952351 258
74015205 259?? Why do I get messages about missing thread functions when I use
da2d1bc5 260 librt? I don't even use threads.
74015205 261
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262{UD} In this case you probably mixed up your installation. librt uses
263threads internally and has implicit references to the thread library.
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264Normally these references are satisfied automatically but if the thread
265library is not in the expected place you must tell the linker where it is.
266When using GNU ld it works like this:
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267
268 gcc -o foo foo.c -Wl,-rpath-link=/some/other/dir -lrt
269
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270The `/some/other/dir' should contain the thread library. `ld' will use the
271given path to find the implicitly referenced library while not disturbing
272any other link path.
74015205 273
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274?? What's the problem with configure --enable-omitfp?
275
276{AJ} When --enable-omitfp is set the libraries are built without frame
fdacb17d 277pointers. Some compilers produce buggy code for this model and therefore we
f12944ec 278don't advise using it at the moment.
61952351 279
fdacb17d 280If you use --enable-omitfp, you're on your own. If you encounter problems
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281with a library that was build this way, we advise you to rebuild the library
282without --enable-omitfp. If the problem vanishes consider tracking the
283problem down and report it as compiler failure.
61952351 284
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285Since a library build with --enable-omitfp is undebuggable on most systems,
286debuggable libraries are also built - you can use it by appending "_g" to
287the library names.
61952351 288
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289The compilation of these extra libraries and the compiler optimizations slow
290down the build process and need more disk space.
61952351 291
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292?? I get failures during `make check'. What shall I do?
293
294{AJ} The testsuite should compile and run cleanly on your system, every
295failure should be looked into. Depending on the failure I wouldn't advise
296installing the library at all.
297
298You should consider using the `glibcbug' script to report the failure,
299providing as much detail as possible. If you run a test directly, please
300remember to set up the environment correctly. You want to test the compiled
301library - and not your installed one. The best way is to copy the exact
302command line which failed and run the test from the subdirectory for this
303test in the sources.
304
305There are some failures which are not directly related to the GNU libc:
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306- Some compiler produce buggy code. The egcs 1.1 release should be ok. gcc
307 2.8.1 might cause some failures, gcc 2.7.2.x is so buggy, that explicit
308 checks have been used so that you can't build with it.
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309- The kernel might have bugs. For example on Linux/Alpha 2.0.34 the
310 floating point handling has quite a number of bugs and therefore most of
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311 the test cases in the math subdirectory will fail. Linux 2.2 has
312 fixes for the floating point support on Alpha.
b0610668 313
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314?? What is symbol versioning good for? Do I need it?
315
316{AJ} Symbol versioning solves problems that are related to interface
317changes. One version of an interface might have been introduced in a
318previous version of the GNU C library but the interface or the semantics of
319the function has been changed in the meantime. For binary compatibility
320with the old library, a newer library needs to still have the old interface
321for old programs. On the other hand new programs should use the new
322interface. Symbol versioning is the solution for this problem. The GNU
323libc version 2.1 uses by default symbol versioning if the binutils support
324it.
325
326We don't advise to build without symbol versioning since you lose binary
327compatibility if you do - for ever! The binary compatibility you lose is
328not only against the previous version of the GNU libc (version 2.0) but also
329against future versions.
330
b0610668 331
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332? Installation and configuration issues
333
334?? Can I replace the libc on my Linux system with GNU libc?
335
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336{UD} You cannot replace any existing libc for Linux with GNU libc. It is
337binary incompatible and therefore has a different major version. You can,
338however, install it alongside your existing libc.
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339
340For Linux there are three major libc versions:
341 libc-4 a.out libc
342 libc-5 original ELF libc
343 libc-6 GNU libc
344
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345You can have any combination of these three installed. For more information
346consult documentation for shared library handling. The Makefiles of GNU
347libc will automatically generate the needed symbolic links which the linker
348will use.
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349
350?? How do I configure GNU libc so that the essential libraries
351 like libc.so go into /lib and the other into /usr/lib?
352
353{UD,AJ} Like all other GNU packages GNU libc is designed to use a base
354directory and install all files relative to this. The default is
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355/usr/local, because this is safe (it will not damage the system if installed
356there). If you wish to install GNU libc as the primary C library on your
357system, set the base directory to /usr (i.e. run configure --prefix=/usr
358<other_options>). Note that this can damage your system; see ?safety for
359details.
360
361Some systems like Linux have a filesystem standard which makes a difference
362between essential libraries and others. Essential libraries are placed in
363/lib because this directory is required to be located on the same disk
364partition as /. The /usr subtree might be found on another
365partition/disk. If you configure for Linux with --prefix=/usr, then this
366will be done automatically.
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367
368To install the essential libraries which come with GNU libc in /lib on
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369systems other than Linux one must explicitly request it. Autoconf has no
370option for this so you have to use a `configparms' file (see the `INSTALL'
371file for details). It should contain:
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372
373slibdir=/lib
374sysconfdir=/etc
375
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376The first line specifies the directory for the essential libraries, the
377second line the directory for system configuration files.
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378
379??safety How should I avoid damaging my system when I install GNU libc?
380
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381{ZW} If you wish to be cautious, do not configure with --prefix=/usr. If
382you don't specify a prefix, glibc will be installed in /usr/local, where it
383will probably not break anything. (If you wish to be certain, set the
384prefix to something like /usr/local/glibc2 which is not used for anything.)
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385
386The dangers when installing glibc in /usr are twofold:
387
388* glibc will overwrite the headers in /usr/include. Other C libraries
389 install a different but overlapping set of headers there, so the
390 effect will probably be that you can't compile anything. You need to
391 rename /usr/include out of the way first. (Do not throw it away; you
392 will then lose the ability to compile programs against your old libc.)
393
394* None of your old libraries, static or shared, can be used with a
395 different C library major version. For shared libraries this is not a
396 problem, because the filenames are different and the dynamic linker
397 will enforce the restriction. But static libraries have no version
398 information. You have to evacuate all the static libraries in
399 /usr/lib to a safe location.
400
401The situation is rather similar to the move from a.out to ELF which
402long-time Linux users will remember.
403
404?? Do I need to use GNU CC to compile programs that will use the
405 GNU C Library?
406
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407{ZW} In theory, no; the linker does not care, and the headers are supposed
408to check for GNU CC before using its extensions to the C language.
61952351 409
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410However, there are currently no ports of glibc to systems where another
411compiler is the default, so no one has tested the headers extensively
412against another compiler. You may therefore encounter difficulties. If you
413do, please report them as bugs.
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414
415Also, in several places GNU extensions provide large benefits in code
416quality. For example, the library has hand-optimized, inline assembly
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417versions of some string functions. These can only be used with GCC. See
418?string for details.
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419
420??crypt When linking with the new libc I get unresolved symbols
421 `crypt' and `setkey'. Why aren't these functions in the
422 libc anymore?
423
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424{UD} The US places restrictions on exporting cryptographic programs and
425source code. Until this law gets abolished we cannot ship the cryptographic
426functions together with glibc.
61952351 427
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428The functions are available, as an add-on (see ?addon). People in the US
429may get it from the same place they got GNU libc from. People outside the
430US should get the code from ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/gnu, or another archive
431site outside the USA. The README explains how to install the sources.
61952351 432
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433If you already have the crypt code on your system the reason for the failure
434is probably that you did not link with -lcrypt. The crypto functions are in
435a separate library to make it possible to export GNU libc binaries from the
436US.
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437
438?? When I use GNU libc on my Linux system by linking against
439 the libc.so which comes with glibc all I get is a core dump.
440
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441{UD} On Linux, gcc sets the dynamic linker to /lib/ld-linux.so.1 unless the
442user specifies a -dynamic-linker argument. This is the name of the libc5
443dynamic linker, which does not work with glibc.
61952351 444
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445For casual use of GNU libc you can just specify to the linker
446 --dynamic-linker=/lib/ld-linux.so.2
61952351 447
f12944ec 448which is the glibc dynamic linker, on Linux systems. On other systems the
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449name is /lib/ld.so.1. When linking via gcc, you've got to add
450 -Wl,--dynamic-linker=/lib/ld-linux.so.2
451
452to the gcc command line.
61952351 453
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454To change your environment to use GNU libc for compiling you need to change
455the `specs' file of your gcc. This file is normally found at
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456
457 /usr/lib/gcc-lib/<arch>/<version>/specs
458
459In this file you have to change a few things:
460
461- change `ld-linux.so.1' to `ld-linux.so.2'
462
463- remove all expression `%{...:-lgmon}'; there is no libgmon in glibc
464
465- fix a minor bug by changing %{pipe:-} to %|
466
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467Here is what the gcc-2.7.2 specs file should look like when GNU libc is
468installed at /usr:
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469
470-----------------------------------------------------------------------
471*asm:
472%{V} %{v:%{!V:-V}} %{Qy:} %{!Qn:-Qy} %{n} %{T} %{Ym,*} %{Yd,*} %{Wa,*:%*}
473
474*asm_final:
475%|
476
477*cpp:
478%{fPIC:-D__PIC__ -D__pic__} %{fpic:-D__PIC__ -D__pic__} %{!m386:-D__i486__} %{posix:-D_POSIX_SOURCE} %{pthread:-D_REENTRANT}
479
480*cc1:
481%{profile:-p}
482
483*cc1plus:
484
485
486*endfile:
487%{!shared:crtend.o%s} %{shared:crtendS.o%s} crtn.o%s
488
489*link:
490-m elf_i386 %{shared:-shared} %{!shared: %{!ibcs: %{!static: %{rdynamic:-export-dynamic} %{!dynamic-linker:-dynamic-linker /lib/ld-linux.so.2}} %{static:-static}}}
491
492*lib:
493%{!shared: %{pthread:-lpthread} %{profile:-lc_p} %{!profile: -lc}}
494
495*libgcc:
496-lgcc
497
498*startfile:
499%{!shared: %{pg:gcrt1.o%s} %{!pg:%{p:gcrt1.o%s} %{!p:%{profile:gcrt1.o%s} %{!profile:crt1.o%s}}}} crti.o%s %{!shared:crtbegin.o%s} %{shared:crtbeginS.o%s}
500
501*switches_need_spaces:
502
503
504*signed_char:
505%{funsigned-char:-D__CHAR_UNSIGNED__}
506
507*predefines:
508-D__ELF__ -Dunix -Di386 -Dlinux -Asystem(unix) -Asystem(posix) -Acpu(i386) -Amachine(i386)
509
510*cross_compile:
5110
512
513*multilib:
514. ;
515
516-----------------------------------------------------------------------
517
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518Things get a bit more complicated if you have GNU libc installed in some
519other place than /usr, i.e., if you do not want to use it instead of the old
520libc. In this case the needed startup files and libraries are not found in
521the regular places. So the specs file must tell the compiler and linker
522exactly what to use.
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523
524Version 2.7.2.3 does and future versions of GCC will automatically
525provide the correct specs.
526
527?? Looking through the shared libc file I haven't found the
528 functions `stat', `lstat', `fstat', and `mknod' and while
529 linking on my Linux system I get error messages. How is
530 this supposed to work?
531
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532{RM} Believe it or not, stat and lstat (and fstat, and mknod) are supposed
533to be undefined references in libc.so.6! Your problem is probably a missing
534or incorrect /usr/lib/libc.so file; note that this is a small text file now,
535not a symlink to libc.so.6. It should look something like this:
61952351 536
71bedb76 537GROUP ( libc.so.6 libc_nonshared.a )
61952351 538
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539??exception When I run an executable on one system which I compiled on
540 another, I get dynamic linker errors. Both systems have the same
541 version of glibc installed. What's wrong?
542
543{ZW} Glibc on one of these systems was compiled with gcc 2.7 or 2.8, the
544other with egcs (any version). Egcs has functions in its internal
545`libgcc.a' to support exception handling with C++. They are linked into
546any program or dynamic library compiled with egcs, whether it needs them or
547not. Dynamic libraries then turn around and export those functions again
548unless special steps are taken to prevent them.
549
550When you link your program, it resolves its references to the exception
551functions to the ones exported accidentally by libc.so. That works fine as
552long as libc has those functions. On the other system, libc doesn't have
553those functions because it was compiled by gcc 2.8, and you get undefined
554symbol errors. The symbols in question are named things like
555`__register_frame_info'.
556
557For glibc 2.0, the workaround is to not compile libc with egcs. We've also
558incorporated a patch which should prevent the EH functions sneaking into
559libc. It doesn't matter what compiler you use to compile your program.
560
561For glibc 2.1, we've chosen to do it the other way around: libc.so
562explicitly provides the EH functions. This is to prevent other shared
563libraries from doing it. You must therefore compile glibc 2.1 with EGCS
564unless you don't care about ever importing binaries from other systems.
565Again, it doesn't matter what compiler you use for your programs.
566
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567?? How can I compile gcc 2.7.2.1 from the gcc source code using
568 glibc 2.x?
569
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570{AJ} There's only correct support for glibc 2.0.x in gcc 2.7.2.3 or later.
571But you should get at least gcc 2.8.1 or egcs 1.0.2 (or later versions)
572instead.
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573
574?? The `gencat' utility cannot process the catalog sources which
575 were used on my Linux libc5 based system. Why?
576
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577{UD} The `gencat' utility provided with glibc complies to the XPG standard.
578The older Linux version did not obey the standard, so they are not
579compatible.
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580
581To ease the transition from the Linux version some of the non-standard
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582features are also present in the `gencat' program of GNU libc. This mainly
583includes the use of symbols for the message number and the automatic
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584generation of header files which contain the needed #defines to map the
585symbols to integers.
586
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587Here is a simple SED script to convert at least some Linux specific catalog
588files to the XPG4 form:
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589
590-----------------------------------------------------------------------
591# Change catalog source in Linux specific format to standard XPG format.
592# Ulrich Drepper <drepper@cygnus.com>, 1996.
593#
594/^\$ #/ {
595 h
596 s/\$ #\([^ ]*\).*/\1/
597 x
598 s/\$ #[^ ]* *\(.*\)/\$ \1/
599}
600
601/^# / {
602 s/^# \(.*\)/\1/
603 G
604 s/\(.*\)\n\(.*\)/\2 \1/
605}
606-----------------------------------------------------------------------
607
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608?? Programs using libc have their messages translated, but other
609 behavior is not localized (e.g. collating order); why?
610
611{ZW} Translated messages are automatically installed, but the locale
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612database that controls other behaviors is not. You need to run localedef to
613install this database, after you have run `make install'. For example, to
614set up the French Canadian locale, simply issue the command
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615
616 localedef -i fr_CA -f ISO-8859-1 fr_CA
617
618Please see localedata/README in the source tree for further details.
619
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620?? I have set up /etc/nis.conf, and the Linux libc 5 with NYS
621 works great. But the glibc NIS+ doesn't seem to work.
622
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623{TK} The glibc NIS+ implementation uses a /var/nis/NIS_COLD_START file for
624storing information about the NIS+ server and their public keys, because the
625nis.conf file does not contain all the necessary information. You have to
626copy a NIS_COLD_START file from a Solaris client (the NIS_COLD_START file is
627byte order independent) or generate it with nisinit from the nis-tools
628package; available at
629
630 http://www-vt.uni-paderborn.de/~kukuk/linux/nisplus.html
61952351 631
da2d1bc5 632?? I have killed ypbind to stop using NIS, but glibc
3dcf8ea6 633 continues using NIS.
4d06461a 634
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635{TK} For faster NIS lookups, glibc uses the /var/yp/binding/ files from
636ypbind. ypbind 3.3 and older versions don't always remove these files, so
637glibc will continue to use them. Other BSD versions seem to work correctly.
638Until ypbind 3.4 is released, you can find a patch at
639
05f732b3 640 ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/net/NIS/ypbind-3.3-glibc4.diff.gz
a788b6c2 641
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642?? Under Linux/Alpha, I always get "do_ypcall: clnt_call:
643 RPC: Unable to receive; errno = Connection refused" when using NIS.
a788b6c2 644
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645{TK} You need a ypbind version which is 64bit clean. Some versions are not
64664bit clean. A 64bit clean implementation is ypbind-mt. For ypbind 3.3,
647you need the patch from ftp.kernel.org (See the previous question). I don't
648know about other versions.
a788b6c2 649
4d06461a 650
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651?? After installing glibc name resolving doesn't work properly.
652
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653{AJ} You probably should read the manual section describing nsswitch.conf
654(just type `info libc "NSS Configuration File"'). The NSS configuration
655file is usually the culprit.
61952351 656
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657
658?? How do I create the databases for NSS?
659
660{AJ} If you have an entry "db" in /etc/nsswitch.conf you should also create
661the database files. The glibc sources contain a Makefile which does the
7fd18ea2 662necessary conversion and calls to create those files. The file is
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663`db-Makefile' in the subdirectory `nss' and you can call it with `make -f
664db-Makefile'. Please note that not all services are capable of using a
665database. Currently passwd, group, ethers, protocol, rpc, services shadow
666and netgroup are implemented.
667
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668?? I have /usr/include/net and /usr/include/scsi as symlinks
669 into my Linux source tree. Is that wrong?
670
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671{PB} This was necessary for libc5, but is not correct when using glibc.
672Including the kernel header files directly in user programs usually does not
673work (see ?kerhdr). glibc provides its own <net/*> and <scsi/*> header
674files to replace them, and you may have to remove any symlink that you have
675in place before you install glibc. However, /usr/include/asm and
676/usr/include/linux should remain as they were.
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677
678?? Programs like `logname', `top', `uptime' `users', `w' and
679 `who', show incorrect information about the (number of)
680 users on my system. Why?
681
682{MK} See ?getlog.
683
684?? After upgrading to glibc 2.1 with symbol versioning I get
685 errors about undefined symbols. What went wrong?
686
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687{AJ} The problem is caused either by wrong program code or tools. In the
688versioned libc a lot of symbols are now local that were global symbols in
689previous versions. It seems that programs linked against older versions
690often accidentally used libc global variables -- something that should not
691happen.
61952351 692
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693The only way to fix this is to recompile your program. Sorry, that's the
694price you might have to pay once for quite a number of advantages with
695symbol versioning.
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696
697?? When I start the program XXX after upgrading the library
698 I get
699 XXX: Symbol `_sys_errlist' has different size in shared
700 object, consider re-linking
701 Why? What should I do?
702
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703{UD} As the message says, relink the binary. The problem is that a few
704symbols from the library can change in size and there is no way to avoid
705this. _sys_errlist is a good example. Occasionally there are new error
706numbers added to the kernel and this must be reflected at user level,
707breaking programs that refer to them directly.
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709Such symbols should normally not be used at all. There are mechanisms to
710avoid using them. In the case of _sys_errlist, there is the strerror()
711function which should _always_ be used instead. So the correct fix is to
712rewrite that part of the application.
61952351 713
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714In some situations (especially when testing a new library release) it might
715be possible that a symbol changed size when that should not have happened.
716So in case of doubt report such a warning message as a problem.
61952351 717
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718?? What do I need for C++ development?
719
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720{HJ,AJ} You need either egcs 1.1 which comes directly with libstdc++ or
721gcc-2.8.1 together with libstdc++ 2.8.1.1. egcs 1.1 has the better C++
722support and works directly with glibc 2.1. If you use gcc-2.8.1 with
723libstdc++ 2.8.1.1, you need to modify libstdc++ a bit. A patch is available
724as:
725 ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/libstdc++-2.8.1.1-glibc2.1-diff.gz
726
727Please note that libg++ 2.7.2 (and the Linux Versions 2.7.2.x) doesn't work
728very well with the GNU C library due to vtable thunks. If you're upgrading
729from glibc 2.0.x to 2.1 you have to recompile libstdc++ since the library
730compiled for 2.0 is not compatible due to the new Large File Support (LFS)
731in version 2.1.
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732
733{UD} But since in the case of a shared libstdc++ the version numbers should
734be different existing programs will continue to work.
da2d1bc5 735
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736?? Even statically linked programs need some shared libraries
737 which is not acceptable for me. What can I do?
738
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739{AJ} NSS (for details just type `info libc "Name Service Switch"') won't
740work properly without shared libraries. NSS allows using different services
741(e.g. NIS, files, db, hesiod) by just changing one configuration file
742(/etc/nsswitch.conf) without relinking any programs. The only disadvantage
743is that now static libraries need to access shared libraries. This is
744handled transparently by the GNU C library.
6ca96fe2 745
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746A solution is to configure glibc with --enable-static-nss. In this case you
747can create a static binary that will use only the services dns and files
748(change /etc/nsswitch.conf for this). You need to link explicitly against
749all these services. For example:
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750
751 gcc -static test-netdb.c -o test-netdb.c \
752 -lc -lnss_files -lnss_dns -lresolv
753
754The problem with this approach is that you've got to link every static
755program that uses NSS routines with all those libraries.
756
757{UD} In fact, one cannot say anymore that a libc compiled with this
758option is using NSS. There is no switch anymore. Therefore it is
759*highly* recommended *not* to use --enable-static-nss since this makes
760the behaviour of the programs on the system inconsistent.
761
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762?? I just upgraded my Linux system to glibc and now I get
763 errors whenever I try to link any program.
764
765{ZW} This happens when you have installed glibc as the primary C library but
766have stray symbolic links pointing at your old C library. If the first
767`libc.so' the linker finds is libc 5, it will use that. Your program
768expects to be linked with glibc, so the link fails.
769
770The most common case is that glibc put its `libc.so' in /usr/lib, but there
771was a `libc.so' from libc 5 in /lib, which gets searched first. To fix the
772problem, just delete /lib/libc.so. You may also need to delete other
773symbolic links in /lib, such as /lib/libm.so if it points to libm.so.5.
774
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775{AJ} The perl script test-installation.pl which is run as last step during
776an installation of glibc that is configured with --prefix=/usr should help
777detect these situations. If the script reports problems, something is
778really screwed up.
779
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780?? When I use nscd the machine freezes.
781
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782{UD} You cannot use nscd with Linux 2.0.*. There is functionality missing
783in the kernel and work-arounds are not suitable. Besides, some parts of the
784kernel are too buggy when it comes to using threads.
48244d09 785
440d13e2 786If you need nscd, you have to use at least a 2.1 kernel.
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787
788Note that I have at this point no information about any other platform.
789
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790?? I need lots of open files. What do I have to do?
791
792{AJ} This is at first a kernel issue. The kernel defines limits with
793OPEN_MAX the number of simultaneous open files and with FD_SETSIZE the
794number of used file descriptors. You need to change these values in your
795kernel and recompile the kernel so that the kernel allows to use more open
796files. You don't necessarily need to recompile the GNU C library since the
797only place where OPEN_MAX and FD_SETSIZE is really needed in the library
798itself is the size of fd_set which is used by select.
799
800The GNU C library is now (nearly) select free. This means it internally has
801no limits imposed by the `fd_set' type. Instead almost all places where the
802functionality is needed the `poll' function is used.
803
804If you increase the number of file descriptors in the kernel you don't need
805to recompile the C library. The remaining select calls are in the RPC code.
806If your RPC daemons don't need more than FD_SETSIZE file descriptors, you
807don't need to change anything at all.
808
809{UD} You can always get the maximum number of file descriptors a process is
810allowed to have open at any time using
811
812 number = sysconf (_SC_OPEN_MAX);
813
814This will work even if the kernel limits change.
815
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816?? How do I get the same behavior on parsing /etc/passwd and
817 /etc/group as I have with libc5 ?
818
819{TK} The name switch setup in /etc/nsswitch.conf selected by most Linux
820distributions does not support +/- and netgroup entries in the files like
821/etc/passwd. Though this is the preferred setup some people might have
822setups coming over from the libc5 days where it was the default to recognize
823lines like this. To get back to the old behaviour one simply has to change
824the rules for passwd, group, and shadow in the nsswitch.conf file as
825follows:
826
827passwd: compat
828group: compat
829shadow: compat
830
831passwd_compat: nis
832group_compat: nis
833shadow_compat: nis
834
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835?? What needs to be recompiled when upgrading from glibc 2.0 to glibc
836 2.1?
837
838{AJ,CG} If you just upgrade the glibc from 2.0.x (x <= 7) to 2.1, binaries
839that have been linked against glibc 2.0 will continue to work.
840
841If you compile your own binaries against glibc 2.1, you also need to
842recompile some other libraries. The problem is that libio had to be
843changed and therefore libraries that are based or depend on the libio
844of glibc, e.g. ncurses or slang, need to be recompiled. If you
845experience strange segmentation faults in your programs linked against
846glibc 2.1, you might need to recompile your libraries.
847
848Another problem is that older binaries that were linked statically against
849glibc 2.0 will reference the older nss modules (libnss_files.so.1 instead of
850libnss_files.so.2), so don't remove them. Also, the old glibc-2.0 compiled
851static libraries (libfoo.a) which happen to depend on the older libio
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852behavior will be broken by the glibc 2.1 upgrade. We plan to produce a
853compatibility library that people will be able to link in if they want
854to compile a static library generated against glibc 2.0 into a program
855on a glibc 2.1 system. You just add -lcompat and you should be fine.
856
857The glibc-compat add-on will provide the libcompat.a library, the older
858nss modules, and a few other files. Together, they should make it
859possible to do development with old static libraries on a glibc 2.1
860system. This add-on is still in development. You can get it from <URL>
861but please keep in mind that it is experimental.
0155a773 862
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863? Source and binary incompatibilities, and what to do about them
864
865?? I expect GNU libc to be 100% source code compatible with
866 the old Linux based GNU libc. Why isn't it like this?
867
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868{DMT,UD} Not every extension in Linux libc's history was well thought-out.
869In fact it had a lot of problems with standards compliance and with
870cleanliness. With the introduction of a new version number these errors can
871now be corrected. Here is a list of the known source code
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872incompatibilities:
873
874* _GNU_SOURCE: glibc does not make the GNU extensions available
875 automatically. If a program depends on GNU extensions or some
876 other non-standard functionality, it is necessary to compile it
877 with the C compiler option -D_GNU_SOURCE, or better, to put
878 `#define _GNU_SOURCE' at the beginning of your source files, before
879 any C library header files are included. This difference normally
880 manifests itself in the form of missing prototypes and/or data type
881 definitions. Thus, if you get such errors, the first thing you
882 should do is try defining _GNU_SOURCE and see if that makes the
883 problem go away.
884
885 For more information consult the file `NOTES' in the GNU C library
886 sources.
887
888* reboot(): GNU libc sanitizes the interface of reboot() to be more
889 compatible with the interface used on other OSes. reboot() as
890 implemented in glibc takes just one argument. This argument
891 corresponds to the third argument of the Linux reboot system call.
892 That is, a call of the form reboot(a, b, c) needs to be changed into
893 reboot(c). Beside this the header <sys/reboot.h> defines the needed
894 constants for the argument. These RB_* constants should be used
895 instead of the cryptic magic numbers.
896
897* swapon(): the interface of this function didn't change, but the
898 prototype is in a separate header file <sys/swap.h>. This header
899 file also provides the SWAP_* constants defined by <linux/swap.h>;
900 you should use them for the second argument to swapon().
901
902* errno: If a program uses the variable "errno", then it _must_
903 include <errno.h>. The old libc often (erroneously) declared this
904 variable implicitly as a side-effect of including other libc header
905 files. glibc is careful to avoid such namespace pollution, which,
906 in turn, means that you really need to include the header files that
907 you depend on. This difference normally manifests itself in the
908 form of the compiler complaining about references to an undeclared
909 symbol "errno".
910
911* Linux-specific syscalls: All Linux system calls now have appropriate
912 library wrappers and corresponding declarations in various header files.
913 This is because the syscall() macro that was traditionally used to
914 work around missing syscall wrappers are inherently non-portable and
915 error-prone. The following table lists all the new syscall stubs,
916 the header-file declaring their interface and the system call name.
917
918 syscall name: wrapper name: declaring header file:
919 ------------- ------------- ----------------------
920 bdflush bdflush <sys/kdaemon.h>
921 syslog ksyslog_ctl <sys/klog.h>
922
923* lpd: Older versions of lpd depend on a routine called _validuser().
924 The library does not provide this function, but instead provides
925 __ivaliduser() which has a slightly different interface. Simply
926 upgrading to a newer lpd should fix this problem (e.g., the 4.4BSD
927 lpd is known to be working).
928
929* resolver functions/BIND: like on many other systems the functions of
930 the resolver library are not included in libc itself. There is a
931 separate library libresolv. If you get undefined symbol errors for
932 symbols starting with `res_*' simply add -lresolv to your linker
933 command line.
934
935* the `signal' function's behavior corresponds to the BSD semantic and
936 not the SysV semantic as it was in libc-5. The interface on all GNU
937 systems shall be the same and BSD is the semantic of choice. To use
938 the SysV behavior simply use `sysv_signal', or define _XOPEN_SOURCE.
939 See ?signal for details.
940
941??getlog Why does getlogin() always return NULL on my Linux box?
942
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943{UD} The GNU C library has a format for the UTMP and WTMP file which differs
944from what your system currently has. It was extended to fulfill the needs
945of the next years when IPv6 is introduced. The record size is different and
946some fields have different positions. The files written by functions from
947the one library cannot be read by functions from the other library. Sorry,
948but this is what a major release is for. It's better to have a cut now than
949having no means to support the new techniques later.
61952351 950
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951{MK} There is however a (partial) solution for this problem. Please take a
952look at the file `login/README.utmpd'.
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953
954?? Where are the DST_* constants found in <sys/time.h> on many
955 systems?
956
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957{UD} These constants come from the old BSD days and are not used anymore
958(libc5 does not actually implement the handling although the constants are
959defined).
61952351 960
f12944ec 961Instead GNU libc contains zone database support and compatibility code for
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962POSIX TZ environment variable handling. For former is very much preferred
963(see ?tzdb).
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964
965?? The prototypes for `connect', `accept', `getsockopt',
966 `setsockopt', `getsockname', `getpeername', `send',
967 `sendto', and `recvfrom' are different in GNU libc from
968 any other system I saw. This is a bug, isn't it?
969
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970{UD} No, this is no bug. This version of GNU libc already follows the new
971Single Unix specifications (and I think the POSIX.1g draft which adopted the
972solution). The type for a parameter describing a size is now `socklen_t', a
973new type.
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974
975??kerhdr On Linux I've got problems with the declarations in Linux
976 kernel headers.
977
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978{UD,AJ} On Linux, the use of kernel headers is reduced to the minimum. This
979gives Linus the ability to change the headers more freely. Also, user
a9ddb793 980programs are now insulated from changes in the size of kernel data
f12944ec 981structures.
61952351 982
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983For example, the sigset_t type is 32 or 64 bits wide in the kernel. In
984glibc it is 1024 bits wide. This guarantees that when the kernel gets a
985bigger sigset_t (for POSIX.1e realtime support, say) user programs will not
986have to be recompiled. Consult the header files for more information about
987the changes.
61952351 988
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989Therefore you shouldn't include Linux kernel header files directly if glibc
990has defined a replacement. Otherwise you might get undefined results because
991of type conflicts.
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992
993?? I don't include any kernel headers myself but the compiler
994 still complains about redeclarations of types in the kernel
995 headers.
996
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997{UD} The kernel headers before Linux 2.1.61 and 2.0.32 don't work correctly
998with glibc. Compiling C programs is possible in most cases but C++ programs
999have (due to the change of the name lookups for `struct's) problems. One
1000prominent example is `struct fd_set'.
61952351 1001
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1002There might be some problems left but 2.1.61/2.0.32 fix most of the known
1003ones. See the BUGS file for other known problems.
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1004
1005??signal Why don't signals interrupt system calls anymore?
1006
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1007{ZW} By default GNU libc uses the BSD semantics for signal(), unlike Linux
1008libc 5 which used System V semantics. This is partially for compatibility
1009with other systems and partially because the BSD semantics tend to make
1010programming with signals easier.
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1011
1012There are three differences:
1013
1014* BSD-style signals that occur in the middle of a system call do not
1015 affect the system call; System V signals cause the system call to
1016 fail and set errno to EINTR.
1017
1018* BSD signal handlers remain installed once triggered. System V signal
1019 handlers work only once, so one must reinstall them each time.
1020
1021* A BSD signal is blocked during the execution of its handler. In other
1022 words, a handler for SIGCHLD (for example) does not need to worry about
1023 being interrupted by another SIGCHLD. It may, however, be interrupted
1024 by other signals.
1025
1026There is general consensus that for `casual' programming with signals, the
1027BSD semantics are preferable. You don't need to worry about system calls
1028returning EINTR, and you don't need to worry about the race conditions
1029associated with one-shot signal handlers.
1030
1031If you are porting an old program that relies on the old semantics, you can
1032quickly fix the problem by changing signal() to sysv_signal() throughout.
1033Alternatively, define _XOPEN_SOURCE before including <signal.h>.
1034
1035For new programs, the sigaction() function allows you to specify precisely
1036how you want your signals to behave. All three differences listed above are
1037individually switchable on a per-signal basis with this function.
1038
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1039If all you want is for one specific signal to cause system calls to fail and
1040return EINTR (for example, to implement a timeout) you can do this with
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1041siginterrupt().
1042
1043
1044??string I've got errors compiling code that uses certain string
1045 functions. Why?
1046
f12944ec 1047{AJ} glibc 2.1 has special string functions that are faster than the normal
fdacb17d 1048library functions. Some of the functions are additionally implemented as
3dcf8ea6 1049inline functions and others as macros.
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1050
1051The optimized string functions are only used when compiling with
fdacb17d 1052optimizations (-O1 or higher). The behavior can be changed with two feature
f12944ec 1053macros:
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1054
1055* __NO_STRING_INLINES: Don't do any string optimizations.
1056* __USE_STRING_INLINES: Use assembly language inline functions (might
1057 increase code size dramatically).
1058
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1059Since some of these string functions are now additionally defined as macros,
1060code like "char *strncpy();" doesn't work anymore (and is unnecessary, since
fdacb17d 1061<string.h> has the necessary declarations). Either change your code or
f12944ec 1062define __NO_STRING_INLINES.
61952351 1063
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1064{UD} Another problem in this area is that gcc still has problems on machines
1065with very few registers (e.g., ix86). The inline assembler code can require
1066almost all the registers and the register allocator cannot always handle
1067this situation.
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1068
1069One can disable the string optimizations selectively. Instead of writing
1070
1071 cp = strcpy (foo, "lkj");
1072
1073one can write
1074
1075 cp = (strcpy) (foo, "lkj");
1076
1077This disables the optimization for that specific call.
1078
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1079?? I get compiler messages "Initializer element not constant" with
1080 stdin/stdout/stderr. Why?
1081
1082{RM,AJ} Constructs like:
1083static FILE *InPtr = stdin;
1084
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1085lead to this message. This is correct behaviour with glibc since stdin is
1086not a constant expression. Please note that a strict reading of ISO C does
f12944ec 1087not allow above constructs.
4775243a 1088
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1089One of the advantages of this is that you can assign to stdin, stdout, and
1090stderr just like any other global variable (e.g. `stdout = my_stream;'),
1091which can be very useful with custom streams that you can write with libio
fdacb17d 1092(but beware this is not necessarily portable). The reason to implement it
f12944ec 1093this way were versioning problems with the size of the FILE structure.
4775243a 1094
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1095To fix those programs you've got to initialize the variable at run time.
1096This can be done, e.g. in main, like:
1097
1098static FILE *InPtr;
bfcd44c3 1099int main(void)
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1100{
1101 InPtr = stdin;
1102}
1103
1104or by constructors (beware this is gcc specific):
1105
1106static FILE *InPtr;
1107static void inPtr_construct (void) __attribute__((constructor));
1108static void inPtr_construct (void) { InPtr = stdin; }
1109
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1110
1111?? I can't compile with gcc -traditional (or
1112 -traditional-cpp). Why?
1113
1114{AJ} glibc2 does break -traditional and -traditonal-cpp - and will continue
fdacb17d 1115to do so. For example constructs of the form:
f12944ec 1116
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1117enum {foo
1118#define foo foo
1119}
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1120
1121are useful for debugging purposes (you can use foo with your debugger that's
1122why we need the enum) and for compatibility (other systems use defines and
1123check with #ifdef).
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1124
1125?? I get some errors with `gcc -ansi'. Isn't glibc ANSI compatible?
1126
1127{AJ} The GNU C library is compatible with the ANSI/ISO C standard. If
f12944ec 1128you're using `gcc -ansi', the glibc includes which are specified in the
fdacb17d 1129standard follow the standard. The ANSI/ISO C standard defines what has to be
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1130in the include files - and also states that nothing else should be in the
1131include files (btw. you can still enable additional standards with feature
1132flags).
4775243a 1133
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1134The GNU C library is conforming to ANSI/ISO C - if and only if you're only
1135using the headers and library functions defined in the standard.
4775243a 1136
4d42000c
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1137?? I can't access some functions anymore. nm shows that they do
1138 exist but linking fails nevertheless.
1139
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1140{AJ} With the introduction of versioning in glibc 2.1 it is possible to
1141export only those identifiers (functions, variables) that are really needed
1142by application programs and by other parts of glibc. This way a lot of
1143internal interfaces are now hidden. nm will still show those identifiers
1144but marking them as internal. ISO C states that identifiers beginning with
1145an underscore are internal to the libc. An application program normally
1146shouldn't use those internal interfaces (there are exceptions,
1147e.g. __ivaliduser). If a program uses these interfaces, it's broken. These
1148internal interfaces might change between glibc releases or dropped
1149completely.
4d42000c 1150
a5f4e34a
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1151?? When using the db-2 library which comes with glibc is used in
1152 the Perl db modules the testsuite is not passed. This did not
1153 happen with db-1, gdbm, or ndbm.
1154
1155{UD} You are using an outdated copy of the DB_File Perl module. In fact db-2
1156finally removed the handling of zero-sized keys which was one of the features
1157tested by the old Perl testsuite and therefore you see an error. But this
1158never was documented and guaranteed, only broken programs used this feature.
1159
1160Consequently db-2 does not need to support this feature and instead signals
1161an error which leads to easier debugging. The DB_File module maintainer
1162Paul Marquess <pmarquess@bfsec.bt.co.uk> acknowledged this change and fixed
1163the testsuite so that if you use DB_File v1.60 or later you should not have
1164any more problems with db-2.
1165
5148d49f
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1166?? The pow() inline function I get when including <math.h> is broken.
1167 I get segmentation faults when I run the program.
1168
1169{UD} Nope, the implementation is correct. The problem is with egcs version
1170prior to 1.1. I.e., egcs 1.0 to 1.0.3 are all broken (at least on Intel).
1171If you have to use this compiler you must define __NO_MATH_INLINES before
1172including <math.h> to prevent the inline functions from being used. egcs 1.1
1173fixes the problem. I don't know about gcc 2.8 and 2.8.1.
1174
05f732b3
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1175?? The sys/sem.h file lacks the definition of `union semun'.
1176
1177{UD} Nope. This union has to be provided by the user program. Former glibc
1178versions defined this but it was an error since it does not make much sense
1179when thinking about it. The standards describing the System V IPC functions
1180define it this way and therefore programs must be adopted.
1181
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1182?? Why has <netinet/ip_fw.h> disappeared?
1183
1184{AJ} The corresponding Linux kernel data structures and constants are
440d13e2 1185totally different in Linux 2.0 and Linux 2.2. This situation has to be
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1186taken care in user programs using the firewall structures and therefore
1187those programs (ipfw is AFAIK the only one) should deal with this problem
1188themselves.
1189
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1190?? I get floods of warnings when I use -Wconversion and include
1191 <string.h> or <math.h>.
1192
1193{ZW} <string.h> and <math.h> intentionally use prototypes to override
1194argument promotion. -Wconversion warns about all these. You can safely
1195ignore the warnings.
1196
1197-Wconversion isn't really intended for production use, only for shakedown
1198compiles after converting an old program to standard C.
1199
4d42000c 1200
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1201? Miscellaneous
1202
1203?? After I changed configure.in I get `Autoconf version X.Y.
1204 or higher is required for this script'. What can I do?
1205
1206{UD} You have to get the specified autoconf version (or a later one)
2eb45444 1207from your favorite mirror of ftp.gnu.org.
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1208
1209?? When I try to compile code which uses IPv6 headers and
1210 definitions on my Linux 2.x.y system I am in trouble.
1211 Nothing seems to work.
1212
f12944ec
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1213{UD} The problem is that IPv6 development still has not reached a point
1214where the headers are stable. There are still lots of incompatible changes
1215made and the libc headers have to follow.
61952351 1216
cb0509a8
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1217{PB} The 2.1 release of GNU libc aims to comply with the current versions of
1218all the relevant standards. The IPv6 support libraries for older Linux
1219systems used a different naming convention and so code written to work with
1220them may need to be modified. If the standards make incompatible changes in
1221the future then the libc may need to change again.
1222
1223IPv6 will not work with a 2.0.x kernel. When kernel 2.2 is released it
1224should contain all the necessary support; until then you should use the
3f7b3d9b 1225latest 2.1.x release you can find. As of 98/11/26 the currently recommended
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1226kernel for IPv6 is 2.1.129.
1227
1228Also, as of the 2.1 release the IPv6 API provided by GNU libc is not
1229100% complete. In particular the getipnodebyname and getipnodebyaddr
1230functions are not implemented.
61952351 1231
8b4a4715 1232??tzdb When I set the timezone by setting the TZ environment variable
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1233 to EST5EDT things go wrong since glibc computes the wrong time
1234 from this information.
1235
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1236{UD} The problem is that people still use the braindamaged POSIX method to
1237select the timezone using the TZ environment variable with a format EST5EDT
8b4a4715
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1238or whatever. People, if you insist on using TZ instead of the timezone
1239database (see below), read the POSIX standard, the implemented behaviour is
f12944ec
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1240correct! What you see is in fact the result of the decisions made while
1241POSIX.1 was created. We've only implemented the handling of TZ this way to
1242be POSIX compliant. It is not really meant to be used.
1243
1244The alternative approach to handle timezones which is implemented is the
1245correct one to use: use the timezone database. This avoids all the problems
1246the POSIX method has plus it is much easier to use. Simply run the tzselect
1247shell script, answer the question and use the name printed in the end by
8b4a4715
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1248making a symlink /etc/localtime pointing to /usr/share/zoneinfo/NAME (NAME
1249is the returned value from tzselect). That's all. You never again have to
1250worry.
f12944ec
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1251
1252So, please avoid sending bug reports about time related problems if you use
1253the POSIX method and you have not verified something is really broken by
1254reading the POSIX standards.
73237de3 1255
fdacb17d
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1256?? What other sources of documentation about glibc are available?
1257
1258{AJ} The FSF has a page about the GNU C library at
1259<http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/>. The problem data base of open and
1260solved bugs in GNU libc is available at
1261<http://www-gnats.gnu.org:8080/cgi-bin/wwwgnats.pl>. Eric Green has written
1262a HowTo for converting from Linux libc5 to glibc2. The HowTo is accessable
1263via the FSF page and at <http://www.imaxx.net/~thrytis/glibc>. Frodo
1264Looijaard describes a different way installing glibc2 as secondary libc at
1265<http://huizen.dds.nl/~frodol/glibc>.
1266
1267Please note that this is not a complete list.
1268
3f7b3d9b
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1269?? The timezone string for Sydney/Australia is wrong since even when
1270 daylight saving time is in effect the timezone string is EST.
1271
1272{UD} The problem for some timezones is that the local authorities decided
1273to use the term "summer time" instead of "daylight saving time". In this
1274case the abbreviation character `S' is the same as the standard one. So,
1275for Sydney we have
1276
1277 Eastern Standard Time = EST
1278 Eastern Summer Time = EST
1279
1280Great! To get this bug fixed convince the authorities to change the laws
1281and regulations of the country this effects. glibc behaves correctly.
1282
eeabe877
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1283??make I've build make 3.77 against glibc 2.1 and now make gets
1284 segmentation faults.
1285
1286{AJ} GNU make 3.77 has support for 64 bit filesystems which is slightly
1287broken (and one of the new features in the GNU C library 2.1 is 64 bit
1288filesystem support :-( ). To get a working make you can use either make
12893.75 or patch 3.77. A working patch is available via RedHat's Rawhide server
1290(ftp://rawhide.redhat.com/SRPMS/SRPMS/make-3.77-*src.rpm).
1291
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1292\f
1293Answers were given by:
1294{UD} Ulrich Drepper, <drepper@cygnus.com>
1295{DMT} David Mosberger-Tang, <davidm@AZStarNet.com>
1296{RM} Roland McGrath, <roland@gnu.org>
1297{AJ} Andreas Jaeger, <aj@arthur.rhein-neckar.de>
1298{EY} Eric Youngdale, <eric@andante.jic.com>
1299{PB} Phil Blundell, <Philip.Blundell@pobox.com>
1300{MK} Mark Kettenis, <kettenis@phys.uva.nl>
1301{ZW} Zack Weinberg, <zack@rabi.phys.columbia.edu>
d71b808a 1302{TK} Thorsten Kukuk, <kukuk@vt.uni-paderborn.de>
8619129f 1303{GK} Geoffrey Keating, <geoffk@ozemail.com.au>
da2d1bc5 1304{HJ} H.J. Lu, <hjl@gnu.org>
0f6052a8 1305{CG} Cristian Gafton, <gafton@redhat.com>
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