On Saturday 05 August 2006 13:43, MJ Ray wrote:
How do the older distributions handle libc upgrades? Is a static shell the only way around that or just the easiest? If GCC depends on glibc, how can compiled distributions upgrade?
Older Red Hat RPMs required a static shell to execute the post install script embedded within the glibc package. Taking a quick look at a couple of $random glibc.spec files, I see RH now compiles a static bin called glibc_post_upgrade which does the same thing - Basically, calling ldconfig (which also needs to be a static bin) and a couple of other system utilities. Once ldconfig has been executed, any subsequent programs can be dynamically linked..
For source distributions, it goes without saying that the compiler suite also needs to be statically compiled. If you have ever done a Linux From Scratch install, you would have to have compiled a minimal bootstrap system with static gcc, shell, along with sed & awk (as I recall).
Regards, Paul.