Re: 2.4 / 2.5 compatibility?

[Mike Frysinger <vapier at gentoo dot org>]

On Thursday 25 June 2009 17:20:47 David Morris wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 15:15, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> > On Thursday 25 June 2009 16:11:34 David Morris wrote:
> >> I'm working on a project to get a large suite of software compile on
> >> SuSE 10 (glibc 2.4) running on RedHat 5.3 (glibc 2.5).  Recompiling
> >> the software must be avoided if at all possible.
> >>
> >> The software seems to run with no problems, though we have only tested
> >> a tiny fraction of the functionality.  However, I (and others I have
> >> talked to) have the impression that running with a different version
> >> of glibc than software was compiled against is a "Bad Thing (tm)".
> >>
> >> Anyone know if there are any problems we can expect?  Or am I mistaken
> >> that there is a glibc version compatibility problem?
> >
> > your understanding isnt 100% complete, but it's fairly close.  building
> > code against one version of glibc and then attempting to use it under an
> > *older* glibc is not going to work (well, it might accidentally work, but
> > it is absolutely not supported).  going the opposite way however --
> > building code against one version and using it under a *newer* version --
> > is absolutely supported and should always work.  if it doesnt work, then
> > it's a bug and you should report it.  it might be that said bug has
> > already been fixed in even newer versions of glibc, in which case do not
> > expect anything older to be fixed.  HTH.
> > -mike
>
> Thank you for the clarification Mike!  I (and a few others) were
> apparently led astray by second-hand horror stories....which I'm
> guessing based on the above, were going the reverse direction.

i dont know how far back you need to go, but this is why we keep around a 
Debian install running etch "oldstable" ... it has glibc-2.3.6 installed.  if 
we need binary packages for Linux, we build it up on that machine.  havent had 
any complaints yet (ignoring the people who run on even older systems like 
glibc-2.2.5, but they're fairly rare nowadays).
-mike

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