glibc required for all browsers?

phantom_cyph · 11-14-2008, 12:10 PM

Is glibc required to use all browsers? I was trying to install a browser called Kazehakase, similar to Ephiphany. I got the libraries aside and ran into it saying it needed glibc. I'm building my own custom Slackware and need it to be as small as possible. The 22 megs that glibc takes up would kill my space.

Is there any browser I can use that is small and does not require glibc?

jailbait · 11-14-2008, 01:21 PM

glibc is used by a wide range of applications. The chances of you being able to build a system where nothing uses glibc is pretty small.

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Steve Stites

i92guboj · 11-14-2008, 01:39 PM

glibc is the standard C library. A lot of stuff in the user land depends on it, so you are going to have a hard time to setup an OS without a C library. If there is really a problem with the space, then you should be using uclib instead. That's my advice.

phantom_cyph · 11-14-2008, 06:10 PM

I know exactly what library I need, and where it should go. Is it possible to extract the needed library from the glibc package and use that? I will not be installing any other programs on the given system anyway. The program is netsurf. This is the response I get when trying to start it:

Quote:

netsurf: /lib/libc.so.6: version 'GLIBC_2.4' not found (required by /usr/lib/liblcms.so.1)

I tried to install GLIBC 3.6 from the Slack 11 directory, Slack 12 has 2.5 and 12.1 has 2.7. Is it possible to take the libc.so.6 out of the glibc package and put it in the given directory?

johnson_steve · 11-14-2008, 06:46 PM

Just the ones written in C (so yes all of them.)

i92guboj · 11-14-2008, 06:47 PM

I guess so. However, I doubt it's that easy (though admittedly I never did this).

You can use ldd to know exactly all the files that are linked dynamically against a binary program. There might be some interdependences as well. With that I mean that liblcms.so will in turn link against some libs, and those libs, might link against some others, and so on. For example, in my system ldd reports this:

Code:

$ ldd /usr/lib/liblcms.so.1
        linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007fffc75fe000)
        libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x00007fcabef8c000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00007fcabec37000)
        /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fcabf469000)

For minimal systems uclib can come in handy as I said. That's why I never bothered stripping glibc, however it could be an interesting experiment to do.