Re: RedHat Compatibility

[Matthias Klose <doko@cs.tu-berlin.de>]

Ben Collins writes:
 > The fact is, we cannot run C++ applications compiled on RedHat 7.1. It
 > is not a compatibility issue, it is an ABI issue with gcc-2.96. Unless
 > someone wants to implement a complete RedHat environment, and use
 > wrappers to execute the programs, it wont get done. That given, you are
 > better off creating a chroot with rpm's unpacked into it, and using that
 > to execute the programs, or just create the wrappers yourself if you
 > don't want a chroot. Much easier than trying to maintain your own
 > gcc-2.96 under Debian, along with a seperate glibc compiled with it.

As Branden pointed out (glibc), Debian's policy currently forbids to
include packages, which aren't released. 2.96 was never released, see

	  http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-announce/2000/msg00003.html

There may be exceptions (like gcc-2.96 for ia64) and I think the
gcc-2.96 snapshot helped to improve the quality of gcc-3.0.

If someone wants provide _runtime_ compatible versions of the library,
please step forward, but be sure to make packages compatible with the
specific combination of the libstdc++ _and_ glibc libraries. IMO
Debian should not ship with compatible development packages.