Re: RedHat Compatibility
On Wed, Aug 15, 2001 at 01:53:07PM -0400, Sam Hartman wrote:
> >>>>> "Ben" == Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org> writes:
>
> Ben> On Wed, Aug 15, 2001 at 10:07:50AM +0200, Rainer Dorsch
> Ben> wrote:
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> I just want to point out a problem, you are faced with when
> >> running Debian in a commercial environment.
> >>
> >> Debian needs to be redhat binary compatible.
>
> Ben> No, RedHat needs to be compatible with everyone else. We
> Ben> aren't going to spend precious time trying to keep up with
> Ben> compatibility issues that they introduce.
>
> It seems sort of silly to say in Debian what people are or are not
> going to spend their time doing. If running comercial software is
> important to someone and that person either does the work of making it
> work on Debian themselves or manages to convince others to do it for
> them, then I believe they have acted reasonably.
You're right, I did not mean to speak for all of Debian.
My point remains. The issue pointed out here is not one of RedHat vs.
Debian, it is a metter of gcc vs. glibc and backward compatibility.
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.
> Personally I think it would be great if we dealt with some of the
> smaller compatibility issues, like packaging up the libc++ versions
> that RH uses. I'm not pushing for it because I don't have time myself
> and I don't have money to pay someone. But it seems that Debian is
> mostly a community of people working on what they find
> interesting/necessary. If compatability is what you care about, why
> shouldn't you work on Redhat compatability?
Alien is your friend. Provide a HOWTO, and be done with it. No sense is
wasting time and archive space just to repackage a bunch of binary
.rpm's.
Ben
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