fp5/Linux 2.6 -- anyone got it running?

[Fairlight]

Confusious (Kenneth Brody) say:
> 
> As I recall, there was a change to the Linux kernel or the libraries
> along the way which broke compatibility with statically-linked
> binaries.  (The problem, as I recall, was that the static libraries
> called dynamic libraries, and they broke the compatibility.  This is
> one of the problems that statically linking is supposed to avoid.)

It's a glibc-ism that this is the case.  I think the major library in fP that
was at issue was nsswitch being called dynamically from inside a statically
linked fP binary.

> The Linux version was changed, I believe at 5.0.09, to work around this.

5.0.10 started with the linux dynamic linked versions, according to my
memory.

> In short, you are correct that 5.0.08 simply won't run there due to
> non-backward-compatibility in the Linux distrib.

And if you update, make sure you install libtermcap, as it won't have been
installed by default, and fP >= 5.0.10 won't run without it.

This was originally a problem with RH9, and I did warn at the time that it
would propogate as more adopted the changes that were taken from kernel 2.6
and glibc to accomodate NPTL.

<mini_grumble>
Meanwhile, someone told me this week that SuSE 9.3 is coming out soon.
That's absurd, IMHO.  They just got 9.2 to about the 6 month mark where
I actually would trust it as a distribution--save everything but the
kernel, which I -still- won't really trust until it hits an official
2.6.18.  By the time they get one to the point you're willing to put it
into production, they're ready to release the next one.  

This is by no means a new trend, and RH did much the same thing, as did
others.  But I still maintain the distribution release interval is 1/3 the
size it should be, or smaller--especially as the mean time between kernel
releases has dropped from once or twice a week seven years or so ago to
the point of once every month or three today.  There's nowhere near enough
value added (even to subsidiary packages) between releases to justify what
they're doing--which could just as easily be handled with proper updates.

Vendors really need to find a middle-ground between what M$ and SCO do, and
what the linux vendors currently do.
</mini_grumble>

mark->
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