LibC5, LibC6 and Peaceful Co-Existance

Yet Another Anonymous Coward asks this common question: "I was just wondering if it is possible to run a Linux system with both Libc-5 and Libc-6 installed simultaneously? If so, has anyone had any luck running both with a Slackware distribution? Where can I find some good HOW-TOs or more information on installing and running both Libc-5 and Libc-6 on the same system?" Yes, I know this is a FAQ, but it's something that WILL be asked. Consistently. So I'm running this one just to see how MUCH information there is and whether or not it's useful.

Caldera's OpenLinux

[jelwell]

Caldera's OpenLinux 2.2 [calderasystems.com] has both glibc 2.1 and libc5 installed. You might want to check their distribution to see how they do it.

slackware 3.x with libc6 (glibc2)

[Sardu]

I've been using Slackware with glibc2 as the primary C library since around glibc-2.0.6. Aside from a few initial problems with utmp/wtmp access, its been running fine.

The lsof [purdue.edu] utility came in handy when I started picking binaries to recompile (deciding that the ones that are constantly running should probably be first). Doing an lsof | grep libc.so.5 showed which running programs were linked with the old library.

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Sardu

libc5 and libc6 coexistence

[ElSabio]

The issue is surely not really the libc5 and libc6 libraries themselves - a bit of fiddling with LD_LIBRARY_PATH and occasional wrapper scripts sorts that one out. And you can always find out which binaries require which library with ldd. In fact, I have a little perl auditer that tells you just which camp each executable is in.

The issue is really the run-time linker, and compatibility between glibc 2.0 and 2.1 that I can't find a satisfactory solution to, and no discussion I have yet seen has really resolved this one.

Distro Wars

[Jimithing DMB]

Gee.. I always love how people defend certain distros and then bitch when they don't come with c libraries that are up to spec.

Outdated distros give Linux a BAD NAME. I was talking with a professor of mine about considering using Linux and her response was something to the effect of libc5 vs. glibc incompatibilities.

I am sorry to say it folks, but IMHO, libc5 is extremely outdated and we need to get rid of it ASAP. We are now on glibc-2.1 which has some nice features (one of which is better pty support).

I understand that not everyone wants the most cutting-edge stuff on their system, but in case you haven't noticed, there have been some major changes including kernel-2.2.x and glibc-2.1 and the release of GNOME-1.0 (which still needs work, but I'm glad it's official).

Red Hat's latest distro is glibc2.1 based, has the nice new ptys, has gnome included and a bunch of Really Cool Shiznat . Starbuck has a few problems, so I'd probably wait on a production machine, but it is definitely clear (and should be extremely obvious) that the future of Linux is kernel-2.2 and glibc-2.1 (well DUH!).

One of the things I hate about redhat is that you cannot choose to not install libc5 (although you can remove it later if nothing depends on it). However, chances are some stupid ass binary-only POS is libc5 based (ARGH! WP is a good example) so you'll probably have your libc5 compatibility libs around for a while.

And BTW.. RedHat works just fine being glibc based.. why is slack still in the damn dark ages.

Download any distro that uses glibc

[Nassah the Protoss]

Do it. Who in hell needs libc5?