Do we still need libc5?
Hi all,
Debian unstable & testing still carry around libc5, and some associated
packages like altgcc, libdb1, ld.so and a few others.
Is there nowadays still a use for these packages? Does the amount of
usage warrant the efforts it take to maintain these rather outdated
packages? I get a mixed reading from the popcon output, I don't know how
to interpret it accurately. Fact is though that libc6 has been in Debian
stable for over 7 years, since hamm was releaed mid-1998, and I think
Debian is like the only living Linux distribution out there still
shipping libc5.
Thanks for your insight,
--Jeroen
----- Forwarded message from Francesco Paolo Lovergine <frankie@debian.org> -----
Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 17:56:36 +0200
From: Francesco Paolo Lovergine <frankie@debian.org>
To: Jeroen van Wolffelaar <jeroen@wolffelaar.nl>
Cc: Matthias Klose <doko@cs.tu-berlin.de>, 323139@bugs.debian.org,
David Engel <david@debian.org>,
Francesco Paolo Lovergine <frankie@debian.org>,
RISKO Gergely <risko@debian.org>,
Christian Hudon <chrish@debian.org>
Subject: Re: Bug#323139: RoM: please remove altgcc
Message-ID: <20050816155635.GA23073@ba.issia.cnr.it>
On Tue, Aug 16, 2005 at 02:08:26PM +0200, Jeroen van Wolffelaar wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 15, 2005 at 01:14:45AM +0200, Matthias Klose wrote:
> > Joey Hess writes:
> > > altgcc
> >
> > I didn't realize that this one still does exist. Please remove it from
> > unstable.
>
> A number of libc5 related packages still depend on it though, and
> should be removed together.
>
> ld.so: The Linux dynamic linker and library for libc4 and libc5.
> libc: libc5
> libdb: libdb1
> libg++27: The GNU C++ libraries (libc5 version)
> regex: libc5 version of regex libs
> termcap-compat: Compatibility package for old termcap-based programs.
>
>
> What do you think of this? Based on popcon stats libc5, it's hard to
> say whether it's still really used, though I think it's pushing things
> to still ship this stuff with etch.
>
I already proposed to remove the whole libc5 chaintools and
dependencies before woody release. A few users complained because of a
few old commercial programs (such as wordperfect and so)
which depends yet on it. I asked on d-d at that time. Probably a survey
could be conducted on d-u (I'm not subscribed) to know general
suggestions by our users. I still have the same opinion, the old
chaintool is now and always a pain to compile with every new release
of the current one, and has a good deal of bugs.
--
Francesco P. Lovergine
----- End forwarded message -----
--
Jeroen van Wolffelaar
jeroen@wolffelaar.nl
http://jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl
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