[plug] re opening linuxconf

[Christian]

On Sun, May 06, 2001 at 02:21:26PM +0800, Beau Kuiper wrote:
> > >From memory, this is a few years ago, it was the upgrade from lib5 to lib6.
> 
> No wonder
> 
> libc5 to libc6 is really a new distribution job. all the other libraries
> depend on libc5 still, so when you attempt to build a new program that
> uses libraries other than libc, it will try to link to both libc5 and
> libc6, and it won't work.
> I imagine a packaging system which attempts to upgrade libc5 to libc6 will
> fall into the same hole, or have to upgrade every package on the system to
> link and use libc6, essentually a new distribution.

I know people who have used the same initial install of Debian from (at
least) 1.3 (libc5) through to 2.0 (and beyond) which is libc6-based
without any trouble.  Doing that sort of thing by hand is, as you
suggest, a complete nightmare -- I know some people who did that as
well.

There are some situations where installing by hand from source makes a
lot of sense.  But, for the most part, it makes a lot more sense to rely
on a well-tested and robust package management scheme.  To do otherwise
seems, at best, quaintly old-fashioned and, at worst, archaic and
fool-hardy.

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