Re: Archive and Binary Swarm distributions: change strategy?

[Marcus G. Daniels]

>>>>> "PJ" == Paul E Johnson <address@hidden> writes:

PJ> Watching all these error messages and cries for help go by
PJ> concerning the versions of the C library and the edition of GCC,
PJ> I'm wondering if the Swarm sources ought to be distributed without
PJ> the binary stuff and people should be encouraged to do achive
PJ> installs only. 

For GNU/Linux machines, I agree that binary distributions are of
little or no utility.  But on other Unix platforms (as far as I know),
the binary distributions have been working well.

With a binary distribution, there two degrees of freedom on a typical
Unix box: the X11 libraries and the Objective C + GCC runtime
libraries.  And on a GNU/Linux system there is another one: the system
libraries.  These system libraries have traditionally been very
volatile, and the evolution of ELF and dynamic loader on GNU/Linux
systems has been such that mismatches between what the binary
distribution expects and the system can cause crashes or even
incorrect behavior.

On the other hand, my experience is that X11 libraries tend to be
fairly robust across system upgrades.  X11 uses common infrastructure
and tends be immune from GCC runtime and system library upgrades. 
For example, even on GNU/Linux I still use libraries built in a libc5
environment in what is essentially a purely glibc2 system.

That leaves the GCC libraries as a potential source of
incompatibility.  Provided folks use the same version of GCC as is
noted on the release page, there should be no problem (for users of
non-GNU/Linux systems).  We use the latest version of GCC unless there
is a specific reason not to (as with Sparc).

PJ> Note that the original idea behind the binary install was that
PJ> users can be shielded from the task of changing system software
PJ> (such at tcl/tk).  However, when the Swarm binary is distributed
PJ> as compiled against GCC2.8, while users of "standard" linux
PJ> distributions are using GCC2.7.2, there are inevitable problems.
PJ> The binary distribution does not really save the user from the
PJ> obligation of making some very big changes in the OS. In fact, I'd
PJ> rather install tk/tcl than swap out GCC.

As long as there are still libc5-based GNU/Linux systems in use, I
think that binary distributions for GNU/Linux are probably not worth
the trouble (for all concerned).  Unless the description of a binary
distribution very closely matches your GNU/Linux machine, assume it
will fail.

Other Unix users should ensure they have the latest version of GCC.
The latest version of GCC will, in general, be the most correct and
generate the fastest code. 



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