On Thu, 7 Feb 2013 20:16:18 +0000 Matthew Woodcraft <matthew@woodcraft.me.uk> wrote: > I don't think it's as clear-cut as that. > > Debian handles multiple versions of C libraries at _runtime_ well, but I > think its support for C libraries still leaves a good deal to be > desired: it doesn't let you install multiple versions of -dev packages, That depends on the -dev package, many are versioned where that is appropriate. I have libgtk-3.0-dev and libgtk2.0-dev installed, amongst others. It all depends on how long it is likely to take for all of the reverse dependencies to migrate. It's a bit more work for the maintainer but a SONAME change in a library still needs a trip through NEW, so a new source package vs a few new binary packages isn't that hard. If there are packages which aren't providing suitable migration paths, file bugs. More often than not, there is simply no need to have libfoo1-dev and libfoo2-dev - libfoo2 & it's libfoo-dev just live in experimental whilst the reverse deps migrate to the new API. > (For example, as I understand it Python's virtualenv/venv stuff lets you > express "I want to see the standard library shipped with Debian's > Python, but otherwise only the locally-installed libraries I specify". > That's annoying to do with C because all the headers are jumbled > together in /usr/include.) Not true. pkg-config isolates the headers between packages whilst retaining dependencies and only the headers you specify get included by the compiler anyway. .h files in /usr/include are the exception, most are in package-specific sub-directories of /usr/include. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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