Re: Linux Compatibility Issue

From: Abdul Latip (dullatip_at_angin.com)
Date: 02/16/04

  • Next message: Katipo: "Re: Linux Compatibility Issue" 
    Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 04:49:25 -0500 (EST)
To: DeBiAn uSeR LiSt <debian-user@lists.debian.org>

    On Sat, 14 Feb 2004, David Z Maze wrote:

    > Abdul Latip <dullatip@angin.com> writes:
    >> Once in a while, users are asking me about the compatibilty problem of
    >> Linux. They reasoning that M$Office can be installed anywhere like
    >> Win98, WinME, WinNT, et. al. Whereas it is hard to install a
    >> RedHat package into Debian, and so on.
    > ...and it's hard to install Office on Red Hat, or a Debian package on
    > WinXP. This isn't surprising. :-) The closer analogy is that it's
    > almost as easy to install a Debian package on Debian potato, woody,
    > sarge, etc.

    Apology for my poor english. It was not my intention to compare
    Linux with M$.

    >> AFAIK, CMIIW, this is related with the compiler version, the glibc
    >> version, the kernel version, and the kernel configuration and
    >> modules. May I know what exactly the Linux compability problem
    >> is ? I.E.: It seems they are not so backward compatible?

    > "What are you really trying to do?"

    Thank you for the question! My intention is to understand
    myself what the problem is, so that I can answer questions
    from the users.

    Qouted from a "README.linux" file:
      [...] Linux is the most self incompatible OS I know.
      [...] Libc.so.6 is definitely a big problem in binary compatibility.
      [...] The dynamic linker on Linux does not work correctly.

    > There are some compatibility
    > issues, which mostly break into three parts: (1) it's hard to use
    > newer software against older versions of the C library; (2) other
    > libraries might have changed interfaces, so you need a newer or older
    > version; (3) a small amount of software depends on particular kernel
    > versions. Within Debian, (1) and (2) are dealt with by dpkg's
    > dependency system. If you want to install software that's only
    > available as RPMs (which IME is pretty rare), you can use 'alien' to
    > convert to a Debian package.

    Debian specific question:
      If backports exist/ is possible; than why is not a new version of
      package be compiled with older libs/dependencies version?

    Thank you for clues... 

    -- 
Abdul Latip - Junior Staff - http://people.WebIndonesia.com/dullatip/  -
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