Hey all,

I carefully use slapt-get to update my Slack-current. In slapt-getrc I exclude upgrades of Glibc because apps that were built with a certain version of glibc won't possibly run when a newer glibc is installed (as far as I understood, but please correct me when wrong).

But what about other glibc-related packages, such as glibc-solibs and glibc-zoneinfo? Do they need to be in line with the version of glibc? Is there a risk in upgrading them?

Cheers, Leon.

Repeat after me: messing with the toolchain is bad, mmkay?

In all seriousness, the packages are built from the one repository. In this case that repository is glibc. So although you have 3, 4, 5 different glibc-* packages, they are all based off of one version. Changing a portion of glibc isn't going to be healthy, no matter how you look at it.

As it happens, glibc-solibs are the glibc shared libraries that are linked against by other programs.

That's not to say it's not possible to upgrade glibC: just double check your reasons for wanting to do so, first.

To be a little less flippant about the whole thing, and more educational:
Use something like partimage off a Knoppix-like distro to backup your box and then upgrade and see what happens. There's no need to take anyone's word for gospel, you can test it yourself - with minimal risks =)

Rock on!

- Piete.

Upgrading Glibc:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=upgrade+glibc
# ... messing with the toolchain is bad, mmkay? ... messing with the toolchain is bad, mmkay? ... messing with the toolchain is bad, mmkay? ... #

Thanks for the wise words ;-)
# ... messing with the toolchain is bad ... messing with the toolchain is bad ... messing with the toolchain is bad ... #

also if you install glibc package, you obviously don't need to
install glibc-solibs and vice-versa

glibc :
- shared libc libraries (required to run programs)
- headers files (required to compile programs)

glibc-solibs :
- shared libc libraries (exactly the sames provided by glibc pkg)

So if you never compile programs (I don't think so), install glibc-solibs,
else install glibc

Thanks for pointing that out Keefaz!

Does that mean that I can safely remove glibc-solibs, or will that break things that are already built and installed?

Cheers, Leon.

You can safely remove glibc-solibs, the slackware package
manager is enough smart to not delete the files used by
glibc package (I did it once).

Assuming glibc is installed of course