On Sat, 02 Aug 2003 09:25:43 +0100 Geoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [ most of discussion snipped ]
> ... In particular I have read that > gcc 2.x and 3.x are C++ binary incompatible. I may be wrong (which is > why I am asking questions), but I understand this to mean that I may, > for example, have C++ lib.foo on my system compiled under 2.x, > together with applications compiled and dynamically linked against it. > Now I install gcc 3.x and try > to compile some new application. It won't compile (or maybe run?) > against lib.foo because of the incompatibility, so I recompile lib.foo > with 3.x. Now my existing applications won't link dynamically to > lib.foo, so I have to recompile them. In itself this is not a very > big deal - but I can imagine having an entertaining time tracking down > problems in cases where there may be multiple dependencies. Yes, you are likely to encounter all of the above, and no, there is no quick fix. I do have a permanent solution to offer: install gentoo. I have nothing against LFS - a perfectly fine distro, and a good learning experience, but using LFS means that you must become your own dependancy wizard (time and again). I'm basically lazy. Although it is a matter of reading interest to know that package A depends upon B that depends upon libs D E F which may in turn break package G etc., I don't want to deal with that myself. For that work, I've hired a world wide team of subject matter experts at a very reasonable price (namely zippo): the gentoo development team. My last install (probably ever, except for experimentation) was about 2 1/2 years ago. Now my gentoo stable system is up to GCC 3.2.3 and glibc 2.3.2-r1 which is leading but not bleeding edge. During that time I've seen at least four new releases of RH, Mandrake, SuSE, etc. to cope with new functionality, and I'm sure LHS has had at least one release. Meanwhile, my system has been reliably and incrementally upgraded as new functionality is tested and offered by gentoo. Gentoo offers new releases, too, but these are only needed for new installs. Existing users get the new functionality gradually. It will take you about a week to put up a complete system and a little longer to get used to the unique things in gentoo, but you'll never need to wipe clean and uprade your system again, nor will you need to worry much about dependancies. At least 90% of the packages you may be interested in have a gentoo ebuild available. Any others you can install manually in /usr/local or /opt and worry about the dependancies yourself. Good luck. -- Collins Richey - Denver Area if you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for. _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc -> http://www.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
