Hi,

i'm currently using mandrake 9.0 and everytime i seem to download a rpm a lot of them request glibc 2.3 as a dependancy.

Mandrake 9.0 has an earlier version, so I was just wondering whether or not its wise to update the glibc and if so whats the best way to do so... i'm guessing it would be to compile the source and then make???

Can anyone enlighten me regarding this?

Thanks

demonicnewbie

there are some old howto's on the web about upgrading
libc. they give you the options of using the new or old
one as the default, and how to choose which to compile
with when building new software. if you find some list
of howto's on the web, it'll probably be there.

this is old, but you can probably follow it.

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Glibc2-HOWTO.html

Hang on a minite before you try any thing demonicbnewbie. Updating glibc can be quit dangerouse. Make sure that the glibc that you are planing to install can run binaries linked against you current glibc version.
This is important because you can completly screw up your installation

Do NOT update glibc.

Rather, use RPMs built for your version of your distro. If none are available, build from source.

This is covered in my post to the "installing software" sticky thread on the general forum.

Yo!

If you mess up glibc installation, whole installation is destroyed. Furthermore you can create a backward barrier, which means that some of your (old?) programs do not run anymore. You may need to rebuild those programs which do not run with your new library. However it is nowdays possible, that glibc upgrade *should not* create backward barrier, but you never know.

I once destroyd my installation with glibc upgrade for redhat 9.0 and nobody could not give me any other explanation, except that the upgrade was really buggy!

However upgrading your kernel may be wise to do. But if you are a beginner avoid building it from source. Use rpm upgrades only. And read the manual *REALLY* carefully, before you upgrade your kernel! :-) Later you may want to mess up your Linux by compiling your kernel - but first you will fail, that's for sure! :-)

-Tommi

The "barrier" you are thinking of is when you downgrade, not upgrade glibc. Programs compiled for a higher version will not run on a lower version. However, programs compiled for a lower version will run on a higher version.

That's why you should always use a package for you version of your distro or compile.

A glibc upgrade probably won't be buggy enough to destroy your setup. However, using the wrong one, or doing it incorrectly, can cause problems.

Sorry, glibc can be buggy. It gave me segmentation fault when I upgraded my glibc. There was a big discussion of this matter and my way to install it was O.K. At least nobody found any mistake from my style to install it. But...maybe you have some knowledge which is really special. Or common. Who knows? Maybe I asked help from total loosers and newbies only. :-)

But if you have a suggestion why the upgrade destroyd my installation I am all ears. I really would like to know what was wrong. Please, tell it to all of us.

What comes to barrier you are theoretically speaking right, but I have heard also different opinions. To be honest...I cannot believe.

For example...Win 2000 should run all NT4 programs. Bullshit! :-)Most of them, but not all of them. And if they do run, they are buggy. But win2000 is bullshit...lets forget it.

But *nix is similar sometimes...you never know. I have had lots of problems similar to above...so you never know. However it is possible that I have done some other error. THAT is allways possible, by no means. I am still a newbie.

Maybe you can advice me how to install Radiance? If you can do that, then I start to take you *really* seriously. :-)
You will get 5 star ratings from me if you can solve my problem.

Please, tell me how to install Radiance...for Redhat 9.0. Please proof your geekiness, and I will tell everybody: " This mhern is a true geek, truly usefull to all of us!"

-Tommi

All software is buggy. glibc is relatively solid however, assuming you used a stable release and not a snapshot.

Segfaults on upgrade is fairly common if you don't get it right. glibc is highly sensitive to things like compiler optimizations, CPU architecture and kernel version. If you get it wrong, symbol relocation tends to get broken and apps can no longer locate the ABI they require, which leads to crashes.

Basically, glibc is nearly complete (in terms of posix compliance), the resulting work breaks down to optimizations and the occasional feature, such as Solaris style symbol fixup semantics, which is my pet favourite. Therefore, you should never have any major need to upgrade it, except in special circumstances.

The glibc 2.3 upgrade altered the threading model in use. The vast majority of programs were not affected. Those that made assumptions about the implementation and deviated from the LinuxThreads standard may break. Wine did this (though it was forced to), as did Java and RealPlayer, for reasons unknown to me. In most circumstances, setting an environment variable was enough to unbreak things (except in wine).

In that case, I suggest you review the ELF specification, and then the whitepapers available on symbol versioning. Then perhaps you will believe.

Of course upgrades sometimes break things. That's because occasionally you get badly written software that assumes things about the implementation that are not in the standard. One upgrade to glibc broke PostgreSQL, because they took a shortcut that relied on a bug in glibc. When that bug was fixed, it broke their program. This is a problem with poor coding, not glibc. If humans were perfect, it would not happen, but it does.

I have never heard of Radiance, and don't know what it is. You would have to provide more details for me to be of any help.

Thanks guys for all your help and info.. Inwardly digesting as we speak. I have actually upgraded GLIBC before but have encountered the segmentation fault mentioned in the last couple of posts. The wole thing has kinda just got me a little bit stuck.

I don't want to spend ages trying to install it, if i'm only likely to gain an segmentation error everytime i try and run a rpm

I am still in two minds as to whether or not to try and perserve and get it working??? Is their any noticable difference in versions...

Thanks Again

demonicnewbie

As far as you are concerned, there is no noticeable difference whatsoever. Hence my advice to leave it well alone!

Allright, Mike, I believe you. Sorry, but I have had lots of problems while fighting with Linux and it makes me cynical sometimes. :-)

Anyway here is my attempt to install glibcfrom rpm's:

$ rpm -Uvh glibc*

And thats it. But should I use some flags with it?

If I rebuild them, I have used:

$ rpmbuild --rebuild --target=i686 glibc*

or something similar...what it missing?

Anyway if you Mike only can help me to install Radiance, I dont know how to thank you.

Here are links to Radiance. I think it is one of the best freeware renderers for *nix. It even supports renderfarms unlike POV-RAY so its in my interests.

http://radsite.lbl.gov/radiance/HOME.html

http://radsite.lbl.gov/radiance/framed.html


-Tommi

It largely depends on where you got those RPMs from. If they came from, say, up2date then things should be ok (but you should use the up2date tool for that anyway). Anywhere else is risky.

Again, you'd need to give more detail for the Radiance problem. I would recommend compiling from source. What problems do you get?

hi
im trying to install gtk-gnutella and i'm missing this dependency
libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.3'
where can i get the latest glibc 2.3 rpm for my distro (mdk 9.0)?????

thanx
-NEF