Re: downgrading libc6 ?
On Tue, Nov 19, 2002 at 10:21:28PM +0000, Pigeon wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Nov 2002 15:58:18 -0800 (PST), "nate"
> <debian-user@aphroland.org> wrote:
> >if libc6 is the ONLY thing he installed it may be possible to force
> >downgrade. one of my friends installed the unstable of libc6 version
> >on a potato system about 8 months ago because he thought he could do
> >this to run the new mailman. of course many things broke.
>
> Yeah. This is a PITA. Want a new package? Sure, but you need a new C
> library. But what about all my other packages? They'll all break,
> you'll have to get new versions.
(a) You could build the newer version from source.
(b) In practice the unstable libc6 won't usually actually break all that
much, at least not in such a way that getting newer versions of other
packages will help. (I speak as the guy who's getting all the bug
reports about apropos segfaulting lately under glibc 2.3.1.) There's a
reason why libdb1-compat exists: that reason is to *avoid* breakage when
upgrading just the libc6 from woody to unstable.
> C'mon. This is Linux, not Windoze. There must be some way to install
> BOTH libraries and tell the dynamic linker which one goes with which
> package.
This is OK when the library's soname differs, but changing the libc's
soname is a major exercise for a binary distribution like Debian. glibc
upstream have resolved never to change the libc's soname again.
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]
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