Re: your mail
> I just had hours of ``fun'' after typing the fateful command
> ``apt-get upgrade'' and having my glibc packages upgraded from
> 2.1.3-13 to 2.1.97-1.
FYI, with woody updates, it is very important to use "dist-upgrade".
Things change so rapidly that it usually is better.
> Once the process was complete, trying to start any new programs
> (including stuff like `ls') failed, after rebooting, I had lots of
> ``Illegal instruction'' errors affecting programs such as `login',
> and ended up having to jump through an enormous number of hoops to
> downgrade the libraries. Luckily, I still had the older packages
> in my package cache (because they are no longer available from the
> Debian archives!).
>
> Among other things, it was impossible to log into the machine
> (outside of the single-user mode root login, which doesn't use
> /bin/login). Running /bin/login resulted in Illegal instruction
> errors, with segfaults if you typed C-d to terminate the program.
> Using the debugging libraries (with LD_LIBRARY_PATH) allowed you
> to get a login: prompt, but the program still failed.
Ok, first off, I built this myself, and ran the testsuite, and showed zero
errors. So far I have run mozilla, X, and a dozen other utils (xmms, mol,
etc..) under this version of glibc. I haven't seen the first inkling of a
problem (and I would know about it, since my wife is the one who uses this
box on a regular basis, and she would surely complain, if not louder
than anyone here :)
So my first guess is almost certainly that this is not a glibc issue. Now,
your problem in particular screams of any of several kernel issues. One
could have been a corrupt write when libc.so.6 was written to disk, the
other could just be compatibility problems. First off, which kernel are
you running? Was it a Debian packaged kernel, a rebuild from stock
sources, or a rebuild from the ppc bitkeeper repo? Kernel is a very
important issue at this point. Note, I used the kernel-headers-2.2.17
package to build glibc against, and I am running a 2.2.17pre16 stock
rebuild.
> Downgrading was especially fun, because the set of packages that
> constitute the C libraries has changed, meaning that some of the
> files in the newer packages are overwritten by the older packages,
> and the system won't allow you to do that without a lot of
> coaxing. The libnss-db package, which is new, and not needed with
> the older libc6 packages, is marked essential, and can only be
> removed with dpkg and the --force-remove-essential flag.
> /sbin/ldconfig is now included in the libc6 package, which means
> that attempting to downgrade the libc6 package results in ldconfig
> vanishing. That leaves dpkg in a chicken-and-egg situation where
> it refuses to install ldso, which contains /sbin/ldconfig, because
> it can't find ldconfig.
Downgrading is never guaranteed, and surely you don't expect sympathy after
following unstable? :) Of course, you make a few assertions here and take
some potshots, when you aren't aware of the situation.
1) ldconfig is in libc6 now because the ldso package is a hack. Glibc 2.2
includes ldconfig now, and it is our prefered cross-platform version of
this program (because it actually is cross-platform, more so than the
ldso package).
2) libnss-db is essential because it *used* to be included with libc6
(check the old libc6 package, it's there). It is no longer in glibc
upstream because they removed the db packages (which libnss-db needs in
order to build). So in order to make upgrades go smoothly, I have to
make it essential (making libc6 depend on it caused some other problems
with apt).
Now, let's move on to the real issue, and avoid these. These can't be
helped, and I wont do anything about them mainly because downgrades are
not guaranteed and they have nothing to do with your original problem.
> I don't know exactly what the problem here is, but you might want
> to consider putting your libc6 packages on hold, or avoiding
> upgrades until you hear that everything's fine -- unless, of
> course, you have lots of time and patience, a complete set of
> older libc6 packages, and maybe an extra bootable partition
> somewhere.
Actually, the more people that can test them, the higher likelyhood of
things getting fixed. Trust me, these packages wouldn't be there if they
didn't work. I specifically held off ppc through 2.1.9[456] because of ppc
issues upstream in glibc. No one else on the glibc lists reported
problems, and glibc-ppc maintianers have given the all clear that it works
fine. So your issues are self-contained to your system, we just have to
figure out what and why.
> (Although it's unlikely that this information is important, my
> system is a PowerCenter 132 -- an ``old world'' Mac clone.)
It very well could be...
--
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/ Ben Collins -- ...on that fantastic voyage... -- Debian GNU/Linux \
` bcollins@debian.org -- bcollins@openldap.org -- bcollins@linux.com '
`---=========------=======-------------=-=-----=-===-======-------=--=---'
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