Why are we still using shared libraries?

smallpond · 11-13-2014, 02:31 PM

The ultimate ditrection this is headed is not to build a static linked application, it is to supply a VM image that runs your app. Why be dependent on the host kernel version, for example?

nbritton · 11-14-2014, 01:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smallpond

The ultimate ditrection this is headed is not to build a static linked application, it is to supply a VM image that runs your app. Why be dependent on the host kernel version, for example?

No, I don't see that happening. Applications should not be dependent on the kernel version of an operating system, if they are the developers have done something horribly wrong. Even Microsoft managed to get this right, you can still run MS-DOS and 16-bit Windows applications on the latest editions of 64-bit Windows, that amounts to 33 years of backwards compatibility. If you can't rely on the operating system to run your applications then what good is it, the whole purpose of an operating system is to run applications.

fpmurphy · 11-15-2014, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nbritton

Applications should not be dependent on the kernel version of an operating system, if they are the developers have done something horribly wrong. Even Microsoft managed to get this right, you can still run MS-DOS and 16-bit Windows applications on the latest editions of 64-bit Windows

Not necessarily true. Microsoft maintained ABI-compatibility until Windows 8. They deliberately broke it for Windows 8 in order to remove a lot of crud from their kernel and libraries.

fpmurphy · 11-15-2014, 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by szboardstretcher

My point being,. if the source archive just 'came with' everything it needed, libraries included, then it wouldn't be such a ... troubleshooting process ... to compile and install software.

Actually, it would be a lot worse. Because those libraries, etc. would also have dependencies on other libraries, headers, macros, compiler versions and even possibly kernel versions.

fpmurphy · 11-15-2014, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by szboardstretcher

But these days, custom compilation yields very little improvement

Not true. Custom compilation can yield consideration improvement in performance in many cases.

rnturn · 11-15-2014, 04:34 PM

Quote:

Its a thought anyway. Sure there are a million intricate reasons why packaging and installation can't be simplified, and a million more why we need dependencies still.

Anyone know the reasons?

Someone else may have already mentioned this: security.

If each package drags in their private copy of some bit of code, when that code is found to contain a security flaw you'll have to fix (recompile, download/reinstall, whatever...) every single piece of software that used that. Wouldn't it be easier to fixed the shared library? As long as the interface doesn't change, applications that used that bit of code now get to use the new bit of code without having to be recompiled. Or am I missing something?

--
Rick

Arcosanti · 11-18-2014, 01:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gengisdave

(Ok, everyone has 4+ GB on his pc...)

Actually, some of us are still using PC's with only 2 GB of ram.

rnturn · 11-18-2014, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Actually, some of us are still using PC's with only 2 GB of ram.

Code:

$ free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:        126448      83820      42628          0      38820      34772
-/+ buffers/cache:      10228     116220
Swap:       136512       5180     131332

OK... this is a special purpose system (firewall) and doesn't need a lot of RAM. I don't even try to run a GUI on it though at one time it was possible (if memory serves, the video card stopped being supported by X11 some years ago). Without shared libraries I suspect this box might be swapping madly just from me checking log files.

JZL240I-U · 11-19-2014, 02:12 AM

You (the OP) have "Docker" in your signature, but don't even mention it (or containers) once. How does that fit with your original question?

szboardstretcher · 12-12-2014, 03:17 PM

After wondering this whole thing aloud - Ubuntu seems to be doing away with dependencies and libraries with Ubuntu Core and Snappy.

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1434

Quote:

Developers of snappy apps get much more freedom to bundle the exact versions of libraries that they want to use with their apps. It’s much easier to make a snappy package than a traditional Ubuntu package – just bundle up everything you want in one place, and ship it.