[Zero-install-devel] Linux binary compatibility

[Mike Hearn]

On Sat, 2004-02-28 at 20:07, Thomas Leonard wrote:
> If they'll have it (I expect so; CC'd). It seems that a lot of these
> problems could actually be fixed upstream, though, rather than just
> written about.
> 
> For example, instead of doing
> 
> LDFLAGS = `pkg-config --libs gtk+-2.0 | sed 's/-lpangoxft-[^ ]*//'`
> 
> in every program's Makefile, we could just modify pkg-config to not
> include it in the first place, at least on platforms that can cope with
> dependant libraries automatically, like Linux.

I thought about this a bit already, but unfortunately it's fairly common
to have .pc files like this:

imlib.pc:Libs: -L${libdir}  -lImlib  -ljpeg -ltiff -lungif -lpng -lz -lm
-lXext  -L/usr/X11R6/lib  -lSM -lICE -lXext -lX11

ie the libs are already munged into the libs line. pkg-config can't tell
if these are really necessary or not.

Fortunately the gnome ones seem correct:

gobject-2.0.pc:Libs: -L${libdir} -lgobject-2.0

so I guess theoretically you could start filing bugs against upstream
libs saying their .pc files are wrong. 

At the same time though, as I said earlier I'm pretty sure some versions
of the toolchain puke if you don't do this. I just have no idea of which
versions :( Right vs wrong may not be a clear issue here.

> Perhaps apbuild should be hosted on fd.o?

Maybe. I'll have to think about that. It's pretty easy to hack on with
our current setup.

> > By collaborating I mean getting you to help write it by the way :)
> > bincompat R&D is draining a lot of our time and mental energy at the
> > moment.
> 
> As always ;-) The problem seems to be more one of attitude: people
> *expect* Linux binaries from one system to fail on other Linux systems.
> 
> Anyway, if you stick it on the Wiki, everyone can help out!

Ah yes, the Wiki. I'd forgotten about that. Definately worth
considering, yes....

thanks -mike