Re: Prelinking Debian KDE - Big Problem ?
On Sun, 27 Apr 2003, Nick Boyce quoted:
> Anyway, prelinking is when you now modify the binary, and tell it
> about the particular version of the libraries that it links (say
> version 1.0.3 or whatever) Now when you run the binary and use that
> particular version of the library, it loads the library into a
> specific memory address, and the binary already knows the memory
> address of all the functions and data structures.
> This speeds up loading time and saves memory.
> If the library version changes, then it falls back on the old method.
Given this and until a better method is in place the maintainers could
just pre-link their (non-OpenGL) packages against whatever version of
the libraries they happen to have on their system.
When their users are lucky they have the same libraries and get a
speed-up, if not they just get the same performance they have today.
Would this work?
If an executable is pre-linked against a number of libraries and one of
them changes, breaks this the pre-linking of one or of all libraries?
If a library only chnages slightly, ie. no change in code size, will the
old pre-linked binaries still work (in a pre-linked fashion) with the
new library?
Walter
> Now, the trouble is, when you update a library, you must update all
> the binaries. This means (as far as I see it) either you also update
> all the appropriate binaries by running prelink again on all the
> binaries, or you update the packages the binaries are in.
>
> The second option would cause libraries to have huge number of
> dependancies, and would make minor upgrades of libraries horrendous
> for dial up users.
>
> The first option has slightly more subtle problems. The problem is
> that it means when you update a library, it goes and unpredictably
> modifies binaries. This plays absolute havoc with things like
> tripwire, and any kind of security.
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