Upgrading gcc and glibc (agian)

[Net Llama!]

On 08/01/03 13:51, Geoff wrote:
> Whenever I have looked into this topic in the past I have become lost and
> depressed in a mass of postings in other places warning about binary
> incompatibilities, the need to recompile most or all of my libraries, the
> danger of hosing my system entirely .. etc.  In short, and without meaning
> any disrespect - the sxs guidance looks too good to be true.  Is it really
> as easy as that? Won't I have to recompile most everything after the
> upgrade? Any other gotchas?

I assume that you're referring to the two entries that i wrote.  As far as 
gcc is concerned, yes its that easy.  Its damn hard to wreck your box by 
not building gcc right.  As for glibc, its relatively safe, but there's 
always a possibility of disaster.  Ironically, just today, i completely 
wrecked a box that was running Redhat-6.2, where i tried to upgrade 
straight to glibc-2.2.5 (it was runnning 2.1.2).  But, most of that problem 
was just the enormity of the upgrade, as nothing else had been upgraded 
yet.  I've successfully upgraded several other boxes' glibc without a 
hitch.  While there are always going to be some exceptions, most things 
will _not_ need to be recompiled after upgrading glibc.  Of course it also 
heavily depends on what version of glibc you have, and which you're 
upgrading to.  rpm will have to be recompiled, as it depends heavily on 
glibc's locale libraries.  zlib (and anything that depends on it) might 
also have to be recompiled.  But none of that is a showstopper, and won't 
incapacitate your box if you can't get to it right away.

> I my system well backed up - so I am not worried about losing it - but I
> don't want to get started only to screw up because the sxs guidance is
> assuming something(s) I don't know.

Well, i don't know what you don't know :)   If you've got questions, or 
special circumstances, please ask.  We're all hear to help.


-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
L. Friedman                       	       netllama at linux-sxs.org
Linux Step-by-step & TyGeMo: 		    http://netllama.ipfox.com

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