ELF libc 5.2.18 and directory handling

[david@eos.lugs.ch (David Frey)]

Hello everybody,

I've (partially) converted my old a.out Debian 0.93R6 system to ELF.
The conversion was surprisingly simple, I had to use the emergency boot
disk only once, after deleting the ld.so.cache (my fault).
Thanks to Dale, Carl, and Dirk for their help.

I've re-installed the following packages:

Package: gcc
Status: install ok unpacked
Priority: standard
Section: devel
Maintainer: Siggy Brentrup <bsb@uni-muenster.de>
Version: 2.7.2-5
Provides: elf-gcc
Depends: libc5, binutils (>=2.5.2l.20)
Conflicts: elf-gcc
Description: The GNU C compiler (ELF version).
 The GNU C compiler is a fairly portable optimizing compiler that
 supports multiple languages.  It includes (runtime) support for C,
 C++, and Objective C (support for Objective C was donated by NeXT).

Package: binutils
Status: install ok installed
Priority: standard
Section: devel
Maintainer: David Engel <david@ods.com>
Version: 2.6
Revision: 2
Provides: elf-binutils
Conflicts: gas, elf-binutils
Description: The GNU assembler and binary utilities (ELF version).

Package: libc
Status: install ok not-installed
Priority: standard
Section: devel

Package: ldso
Essential: yes
Status: install ok installed
Maintainer: David Engel <david@ods.com>
Version: 1.7.14
Revision: 1
Conffiles:
 /etc/ld.so.conf bcdcb23c5d5fb460cee2ce315ef7bd32
Description: The Linux dynamic linker, library and utilities.
 The dynamic linker provides the user-level support for loading and
 linking DLL and ELF shared libraries.  It is required by any program
 that uses shared libraries, which is just about all of them.

Now, I'm having the following problems:
1. Binaries which want to access directories in some ways
   (notably make, dpkg 1.1.3 and the fileutils) fail:

a) %/var/tmp/usr/bin/dpkg -l
   dpkg: cannot scan updates directory `/var/lib/dpkg/updates/': Bad address

   and
b) %/var/tmp/usr/bin/make
   make: getcwd: : Bad address
   make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found.  Stop.

c) %/var/tmp/fileutils-3.12/src/du
   2	.

   instead of
   1270	/var/tmp/fileutils-3.12/src

   I know that the directory handling routines has changed in the newer
   ELF-libcs (dirent->reclen thing), but make for example is already patched.

   Since I haven't read anything on debian-devel, I assume that I am
   doing something wrong, but what?  

2. ldconfig doesn't update its cache /etc/ld.so.cache anymore.
   It sees only a.out libraries and the ELF libraries which don't have
   an a.out counterpart.
   Therefore I had to do the links by hand.
   (The libc.so -> libc.so.5.2.18 kludge is described in the release notes).

Thanks in advance,
  David
-- 
David Frey <david@eos.lugs.ch>|Microsoft isn't the answer...it's the QUESTION.
Schlieren, Switzerland        |``No'' is the answer.
PGP-Key available on request  |Linux -- the choice of a GNU generation!