Bug#629819: libc6: gcc-4.2 from lenny no longer works

[Andy Chittenden <andyc@bluearc.com>]

Hi Jonathan

> Andy Chittenden wrote:
> 
> >> 	  The toolchain in Debian has been updated to cope with that, and
> most
> >> 	  build systems should be unaffected. If you are using a non-
> Debian
> >> 	  toolchain to build your software and it is not able to cope
> with
> >> 	  multiarch, you might try to pass the following options to your
> >> 	  compiler:
> >>
> >> 	    -I/usr/include/$arch --sysroot /usr/lib/$arch
> >
> > We're not using a non-Debian toolchain
> 
> I know, but did you try the workaround mentioned above? 

I did try it and it didn't work.

> [...]
> > the only way I've found for sorting out the backward compatibility
> > issue is to create symlinks from /lib and /usr/lib to $arch
> > versions. Perhaps there should be a "compat" package for doing that
> > officially.
> 
> Yes, that's sounding more and more like a good idea.  Could you send
> a package description for "apt-cache show" to print for such a package ...

I'm struggling to come up with suitable text/package name. How about:

Package: gcc-libc6-compat
Description: gcc/GNU C Library: compatibility package
The libc6 packages have moved to support multiple architectures. You should install this package to use older versions of gcc from lenny and squeeze.

> and an exact list of the symlinks that you had to create?  (Sometimes
> people call this sending a proposed patch. :))

:-). The symlinks I created were done with this script:

#!/bin/bash
multiarch_stem=`uname -m`-$OSTYPE

cd /usr/lib
for file in crti.o crt1.o crtn.o; do
    if test -f $file; then
        :
    else
        sudo ln -sf $multiarch_stem/$file .
    fi
done

cd /lib
for file in libgcc_s.so.1; do
    if test -f $file; then
        :
    else
        sudo ln -sf $multiarch_stem/$file .
    fi
done

-- 
Andy