What's the Best Way to Upgrade My C Libraries?
Hmm. We're just about at the point where I can no longer expect
to be able to upgrade anything significant (using 'apt-get
upgrade' or 'apt-get install <package>') without having to upgrade
my C libraries first. But the last time I allowed apt-get upgrade
to touch the C libraries, I had tons of problems. And that was
when I still had a bootable LinuxPPC install that I could use to
restore the older libraries.
I currently have the following C library-related packages
installed (list based on the files apt tells me it wants to
update):
St Name Version Description
==-===============-==============-====================================
ii libc6 2.1.1-12.3 GNU C Library: Shared libraries and
hi libc6-dbg 2.1.1-12.3 GNU C Library: Libraries with debug
hi libc6-dev 2.1.1-12.3 GNU C Library: Development librarie
ii libc6-pic 2.1.1-12.3 GNU C Library: PIC archive library
ii libc6-prof 2.1.1-12.3 GNU C Library: Profiling libraries.
hi locales 2.1.2-0pre5 GNU C Library: National Language (l
hi gconv-modules 2.1.1-12.3 GNU C Library: Codeset conversion m
ii timezones 2.0.100-2 Time zone data files and utilities.
These files date back to July, 1999 (when I initially installed my
system). I still have the debs for all of these on CD-ROM (except
for timezones, which seems to be the latest version available from
the archives, and locales, which is an older version). That means
that if something goes dramtically wrong, I should still be able
to restore the system with 'dpkg --force-downgrade'. I would
also, of course, do a complete backup before I started, and could
restore from that.
Either recovery strategy requires me to be able to reboot the
system and mount a CD-ROM or an NFS file system, so the question
becomes ``How can I do so?''
There's a ramdisk.image.gz file on the ``Debian GNU/Linux PowerPC
PowerMac Page'' (<http://www.debian.org/ports/powerpc/inst/pmac>),
but it's not at all clear to me that that file doesn't dump you
into the general install process (the instructions on that page
seem to imply that it would). The same seems to be true of RAM
disk images from other PPC distributions.
There's also a resc1440.bin disk image on that page, and perhaps
creating a floppy using that disk image would be a better way to
go? Would that disk image boot by itself, or require additional
software to get started? (I have, and use, BootX with my kernel
images living in a folder in the System Folder of my MacOS
installation.)
Finally, I'm also not even sure that the Web page I'm talking
about even has the latest and greatest set of boot-floppy images
-- are they? (And if not, why not, and where can I find images
that would work?) The Web site seems to be woefully out of date
on a lot of PowerPC-related subjects -- we should change that!
(And, yes, I'm willing to help!)
Yours in confusion and anticipation,
C.
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Behind the counter a boy with a shaven head stared vacantly into space,
a dozen spikes of microsoft protruding from the socket behind his ear.
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
C.M. Connelly c@eskimo.com SHC, DS
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Reply to: