How exactly do you update glibc?

[bigpup]

I am trying to hopefully make this a topic we can have in the Instructional How-To Section -> Upgrade/Backup

Looking for specific best way to upgrade glibc to a newer version, from the version that is in the Puppy version you are using.

Why?

Trying to install and use some programs, using terminal commands to do something, doing anything using glibc.
At times, I get error that the command or process of starting a program, is looking for a newer version of glibc, to work.

I am hopping someone that really understands what is needed to update glibc, will please help us all by providing how to do it.

I am hopping how to do it can be as simple a process as possible.

So, if you can provide the how to, WE WILL All BE EXTREMELY GRATEFUL!!!

Anyone want to dive in and give us some ideas and help on best way to do it!

Note:
I have enough understanding of this to just end up with a big mess.
Buit I can help in testing, finding stuff on the Internet, etc...........

[amethyst]

On numerous occasions , I simply used my package extraction tool to rip a newer glibc package from a newer Puppy and use it with an older Puppy by loading it as an additional drive (like an adrv). It normally works. It's better to manually delete the older glibc first.

[wiak]

The following link provides a table showing backwards compatibility (as a percentage) of some glibc versions:

https://abi-laboratory.pro/?view=timeline&l=glibc

I can't say I know what it all really means though. Seems that most things won't break I suppose, but some might...

[bigpup]

On numerous occasions , I simply used my package extraction tool to rip a newer glibc package from a newer Puppy and use it with an older Puppy by loading it as an additional drive (like an adrv). It normally works. It's better to manually delete the older glibc first.

This seems to be the common way everyone that tries is doing it.

Get a newer version of glibc from a newer version of Puppy that has this newer version of glibc.

But how did the newer version of glibc get into the other newer Puppy version to begin with???

It had to get there somehow?

I know for sure you can go to pkgs.org
https://pkgs.org/

Search for about anything and find it as a deb package that can be downloaded and installed.

Example:
Here is a deb package for glibc v2.35 for Ubuntu which maybe will work in Ubuntu based Puppy versions
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/u ... .3_all.deb

[amethyst]

"Search for anything and find it as a deb package that can be downloaded and installed."
So what's your problem? Download it and install it. Actually some may have downloaded the source files from the official release site and compiled it for their distros from scratch...

[bigpup]

The problem is how exactly to do it and end up with a correctly installed update to glibc?

Have you tried it and it works OK?

If yes.

Exactly how did you do it so this is a How To?

[amethyst]

The problem is how exactly to do it and end up with a correctly installed update to glibc?

Have you tried it and it works OK?

If yes.

Exactly how did you do it so this is a How To?

The howto has been posted already. Remember that when you install a newer glibc everything is not necessarily going to work OOTB. Browsers are a prime example, you may need to update some other libraries as well to be able to run a newer version of a browser or other application. That's why, as far as browsers are concerned, it's easier to use one of mikewalsh's portable newer browsers for older puppys (which has the required newer glibc and other necessary library upgrades included).

[bigpup]

Here is source packages for any glibc
https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/glibc/

Pick any .tar.gz package.
Example:
https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/glibc/glibc-2.35.tar.gz

Download it.

Use a program like Uextract to un-compress it so all the files are in a directory named glibc-2.35.

Now what?

[fredx181]

+1 for the question (it's annoying that some software won't work, requiring newer glibc) but my feeling is that fixing this (glibc upgrade) system-wide (without having to "upgrade" a lot of other stuff) is a dead end.
But I'd be happy to be proved wrong ! Please continue

[mikewalsh]

+1 for the question (it's annoying that some software won't work, requiring newer glibc) but my feeling is that fixing this (glibc upgrade) system-wide (without having to "upgrade" a lot of other stuff) is a dead end.
But I'd be happy to be proved wrong ! Please continue

I agree. To do the job "properly", everything should be updated to match. And if you're going to do that, you might just as well upgrade to a newer OS, where everything has been built correctly in the first place.

Despite that many of us have tried this - and it sort of appears to work - you will never be able to turn this operation into a point'n'click package - bang! - installed - done. There are simply TOO many variables at play....and doing things the way we do is basically trying to extend the "lifespan" of an older build at the expense of fundamental long-term instability.

Like I said, it sort of works.....but it really isn't the correct way to approach it. I myself play around with stuff like this all the time, just to see what CAN be done............but I always have at least a couple of 'proven' sound, stable Puppies to fall back to as my 'daily drivers'.

---------------------

I'm going to play "devil's advocate" now.

In a way, this is one of Puppy's downfalls. Because our favorite canine IS so good at extending the lifespan of elderly hardware, despite the exhortations by many like bigpup that you should ALWAYS use the newest versions, they're often just too much for many really ancient computers. So we have a mass of older OSes kicking around all the time. And this presents a problem where it comes to attracting new members, many of whom have had it drummed into them for years that to run anything other than the very newest version of everything ALL THE TIME is extremely foolhardy.

They come along, take a quick look round, see all these folks running ancient hardware and OSes, and immediately think, "What a bunch of amateurs. I don't want anything to do with this....." and pass on by. I guess if we, as a community, had any sense, we would ditch the 'old' model' of Puppy, and try to 'market' it as an up-to-date, featherweight OS (or summat like that).

At the end of the day, our Pup is is a victim of its own success!

(*shrug*)

Mike.

[ozsouth]

@mikewalsh - most folk seem to absolutely love the older, smaller stuff. I didn't try to update glibc in fossa64 series (I consider it too risky), but updated security stuff, & the result was very popular - about 100 downloads, even though base 3 years old & opengl missing. Did similar with s15pup64 (is more complete - modern glibc, mainly needed a few tweaks & is 3 months old) - just 2 downloads. A Jammypup may do better, but stripping that down is hard.

[mikewalsh]

@ozsouth :-

Oz, I couldn't agree more. I'm as big a fan of the older Pups as anybody!

To me, the Xenialpups have, for a long time, been what I consider the "sweet spot" for a sufficiently modern Puppy that will still cut it as a daily driver. Come to that, I still love the Tahrpups; I started off in Puppy with Tahrpup 32, and even now have a fully-kitted out install of 6.0.6. In fact, I've just set-up a working install of Tahrpup64 6.0.6 for the first time in ages, along with the official Nvidia drivers, the k4.9.58 kernel from Xenialpup64 and a re-worked base SFS that is now running the glibc 2.28 from josejp2424's Busterpup64 from a couple of years back, plus an updated dbus + certs. And I'm astounded at just how much thoroughly modern software it is STILL capable of running.....

I've never really got on with the Bionics. Too many glitches with stuff like Qt5, and various other unexplained things that just seem to defy resolution. Canonical introduced a whole bunch of new, partially-untested concepts with that release, and it still shows, unfortunately. No blame attaches to Phil B.; he could only work with the available "raw material", yet as always managed to do a magnificent job with what he had.

Fossapup64 I like, but just don't use it perhaps as much as I should. I get too much fun out of jrb's 'lite' spin on BK's old Quirky April 64; say what you like about Barry, but I've yet to come across anybody who's as thorough when it comes to making sure every last little detail is just 'spot-on' as he is!

Admittedly, once you've been with the community long enough to really understand just what you can do with Puppy, the sky's the limit. In truth, I've had more fun this last decade than I ever had in nearly 30 years of Windoze prior to that point.....and it just keeps getting better.

Mike.

[amethyst]

The only real reason to update if you are a "standard" puppy user is to use a new browser and unfortunately you do need a newer Puppy to run the newest Firefox and Chromium browsers. Other than that it's a waste of space to upgrade in my view, the changes to standard Puppy applications over the years haven't exactly been earth shattering. Still using Bionic 32 as my daily driver but just because I have to use Chromium or Firefox browser otherwise I would still have used my version of Precise (base sfs =85MB, which I can use with the newest Palemoon if I wish). Don't need 64-bit either at this stage (again in my case just necessary for playing DRM video with a 64-bit browser that's all). I suppose it depends upon your usage and what stuff you want to run. This is a practical view, I guess if you have a spanking new machine, you probably may want to use the newest or what have you. But as far as basic usage is concerned, waste of space in my view. BTW - the only 64-bit Puppy I use, is my version of ozsouth's basic Fossa. The size of the base sfs is 118MB (xz compressed without the browser) and I can do everything I want with this Puppy. But again, I use this only now and then since I use Bionic32 all the time (mainly because I use a lot of Windows 32-bit programs with an older WINE version). Each to his own....Actually, this topic has tickled my interest again. Have to check what version of Chromium I can get going with Precise, could be interesting...

[bigpup]

It will be hard to do so do not even try it.

Well that is not the subject of the topic.

If you want to change to a newer version of glibc,

HOW DO YOU DO IT???

A newer version of Puppy is produced and it has a newer version of glibc.

Had to be able to do that somehow!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note:
To test I am using F96-CE_4 frugal install, on an ext4 formatted partition, and save folder.

Trying to update to glibc v2.35

This tells you how for Linux, but we all know Puppy is not simply just Linux.

How to update glibc
https://tutorials.tinkink.net/en/linux/ ... glibc.html

Can go here and get the needed .tar.gz package of glibc source code
https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/glibc/

Can un-compress it and have all the needed files to make and install.

But for Puppy Linux with it's devx.sfs loaded for needed build utilities.

Using a terminal, open in the directory of the decompressed glibc source code files.

This command will not work completely correctly to compile and install. (gets a few errors)

Code: Select all

mkdir build && cd build
../configure --prefix=/usr --disable-profile --enable-add-ons --with-headers=/usr/include --with-binutils=/usr/bin
make&&make install

So, what is wrong with the command?

What may need changed to get it to work in Puppy?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After glibc actually gets updated.

Then we can talk about fixing any issues this may cause.

Or if it causes too many issues.

We can say do not try this.

[amethyst]

@bigpup
You seem to have an issue with compiling. Better to ask in the how to section under "compile", eh?

[jamesbond]

HOW DO YOU DO IT???

Not by compiling.

I don't do this sort of thing myself (I agree with @fredx181's sentiment), but from what I've gathered, most folks get an __already compiled__ glibc from somewhere (from newer Ubuntu/Debian depending on Puppy's upstream distro), usually in form of a package, and then transplant it into the old puppy (by deleting the old one, and then put in the new one).

But since I don't do it myself, I may be wrong.

[wiak]

I'm not sure why anyone bothers.

My old Atom based netbook that is from around 2009 works fine with all current KL distros and probably therefore newest Puppy distros too (new distro build is best way actually to update glibc). Okay, a few may somehow like using even older machines, but surely that is a handful of people only (and most of these may be on this forum...)? So much newer more-energy-efficient/less-power-hungry machines being thrown out for nothing to landfill than the old now junk laptops I used to have (long dead Pentium M and worse rubbish - not just landfill now, also really is rubbish by even ten-year-ago standards).

I don't myself therefore see the point of spending so much time over such dodgy upgrades at all - so much useful work could be done, by those capable, instead. However, if it is something you love experimenting with, fair enough, but certainly not important even short-term...

Thing is, if the old machine needs a 'portable app' that relies on modern libs then any slow-down resulting from these modern libs, gtk, qt, whatever..., is going to apply in that scenario too - might as well just use a more modern distro then... and modern browser certainly requires many a modern lib amongst its dependencies. Whole thing doesn't make sense to me, but I simply don't have much time to spare as it is anyway, so I focus on what seems relevant to me now and in the future. But fine, of course anyone can delete an old glibc and stick a newer one in its place (be that in an aufs or overlayfs layer or however), so if that keeps someone happy, why not?

I'm not the type that bothers running ZX Spectrum emulators either - even though I used to solder them together once upon a time in kit form (older ones than that model too). Then again I use up tons of my own time sitting in cafes on a daily basis... and sometimes, to be honest, were it not for family business needs, and occasional coding for FirstRib, I hardly use computers for anything - just web browsing that I could indeed just do on my android phone. I do have tons of old computers in the garden shed now - some still work... but I think I'd have more fun crushing them with a sledgehammer to more easily throw in the rubbish bag (well - except for the toxins they no doubt contain). Hate to be negative about the point of updating glibc on now out-of-date insecure old distros, but I do 'wonder' if such repeated thread topics don't discourage active new membership here. How exactly do you define or cause death and/or invoke new life?

What may need changed to get it to work in Puppy?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After glibc actually gets updated.

Then we can talk about fixing any issues this may cause.

Or if it causes too many issues.

We can say do not try this.

@mikewalsh - most folk seem to absolutely love the older, smaller stuff. I didn't try to update glibc in fossa64 series (I consider it too risky), but updated security stuff, & the result was very popular - about 100 downloads, even though base 3 years old & opengl missing.
...

'base' three years old isn't so very old though, not like some of the living-dead-distros some are enthusiasting about constantly.

In terms of how things used to be, what has changed that effects topics like upgrades to glibc? Well, here is a quote I found on Distrowatch:

...there are typically 6 - 8 weeks between Puppy releases.

If people are busy revamping very old distros I suspect there are fewer people left available to focus their efforts on improving, creating or contributing to new releases. If we decide there is no real point in upgrading to newer releases, then why are we here? Possible answer might indeed be that main interest here nowadays is in the past - that's different than it used to be though. Well, maybe on the whole the audience remains the same (albeit less in size)? That would explain a lot, and if so, the forum should make that clear so people know what is wanted most here. Once upon a time you wanted new releases though (yes, it was also about tiny size back then when resources of computers had tiny size).

[fredx181]

Let's not criticize people who want to stay using an older OS version, some may have a very good personal reason to do so.
edit: IMHO "backwards compatibility" should be #1 for Linux development, unfortunately it isn't really (plausible reasons probably, but, must say, it's often a pain).

[amethyst]

Choices. Personally, I don't see the point of using a newer distribution if the older one does the job for me as well. Depends upon your usage though but for the basic user.... I tend to stick with what I have and is working and generally only change if necessary (like something that I need not working anymore). But, whatever floats your boat...

[rockedge]

I still test distros on an IBM T42 built in early 2004 with Pentium M processor. No HDD no battery is only 32 bit and needs forcepae

Totally not practical to use though if using browsers....most will not run at all. Just a goof starting the T42 with Tahr-6.0.5-nopae which it loves.

[Grey]

I'm not the type that bothers running ZX Spectrum emulators either

And I do these all the time

even though I used to solder them together once upon a time in kit form (older ones than that model too).

In the early and mid-90s, we also had assembly kits.
But now manual work is in high esteem. Build from scratch. See how it is done now.
Of course, no spare parts from England, the birthplace of the computer. Soviet and Russian microchips (except for the music coprocessor - Japanese, it was difficult to make a copy of it ).

English subtitles are present (if you go to the YT website).
All music is played on the AY-3-8910 music coprocessor.

My favorite moments are at 8:58 and 16:48.
The key phrase of all this is: "It's easy to fix. You just need to add some wires..."

[fredx181]

HOW DO YOU DO IT???

Here's my report of experiment on my Debian Buster 64-bit by replacing GLIBC with the contents of extracted packages libc6 and libc-bin from Bookworm (GLIBC version 2.36)

https://packages.debian.org/en/bookworm ... 6/download
https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/am ... n/download
(just brute forced the files to replace in the system, no "apt" used)

(perhaps for an Ubuntu based Puppy it's similar (libc6 and libc-bin), not sure)

Was prepared for terrible things to happen (but for safety did this on a test install), but seems to work out well , I could make latest Spotify work on Buster this way, latest .deb (spotify-client_1.2.13.661.ga588f749_amd64.deb) requires GLIBC 2.30 and on Buster it's 2.28 by default.
https://repository-origin.spotify.com/p ... fy-client/

Quickly tested if there were any bad side-effects on the system, nothing found yet. (edit: found problem running gimp, see: viewtopic.php?p=96192#p96192)
But of course this is very experimental, (disclaimer ! )
Checked from terminal the GLIBC version with ldd --version and says 2.36, (originally was 2.28);
~# ldd --version
ldd (Debian GLIBC 2.36-9+deb12u1) 2.36

Could be there's another method to do it in a smarter way, this is the first time I've tried such a thing.

[bigpup]

@fredx181

Thanks very much for the info on how you did an update!!

You seem to understand what this topic is about.

May need to do this update for the same reason you have stated!
The program you want to run, that you had to add to Puppy, needs a newer version of glibc, to run!!!

I am waiting for a new version of Zoom to come out that people are going to run into the issue of glibc not a new enough version.
Hopefully Zoom is not going to be that picky, but that does not seem the way Linux software is going today.
With every new version always wanting newer versions of dependency stuff.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I tried the same thing with F96-CE_4 and installed libc6 the same way you did from a deb package compiled for a newer version of Ubuntu. (what Linux OS f96-CE_4 compatible with)

But I did not know about needing to also install libc-bin newer version.

Trying to go from glibc v2.31 to v2.35

So I will try adding that and see what happens.

Again about anything can be found on https://pkgs.org/ in the form of a deb package.

So I need to now see how it does work for me when I do install of libc-bin

[bigpup]

@bigpup
You seem to have an issue with compiling. Better to ask in the how to section under "compile", eh?

Well maybe, but the how-to section is suppose to be for topics that you make, specifically telling people how to do something, not ask how to.

However, looking at most of the topics there.

They do seem to be just that.

Asking how to compile something specific.

[bigpup]

Quickly tested if there were any bad side-effects on the system, nothing found yet.
But of course this is very experimental, (disclaimer ! )

This table, that was provided by wiak, seems to indicate it may not actually cause any big issues, changing to a newer version of glibc. (IF DONE CORRECTLY)
https://abi-laboratory.pro/?view=timeline&l=glibc

That is about perfect percentages of backward compatibility.

Looks like there were some issues with glibc v2.21, v2.30, v2.34.

Looking at that table and it showing the version 2.34 adding 182 new and removed 24 symbols.
I could see that version maybe causing issues.
OH LOOK, in the next version 2.35 backwards compatibility jumps back up to 99.96%.
Looking at the change log for v2.35, long list of bug fixes!
Wonder if those are bugs that v2.34 provided.

So, maybe that glibc table, is a good place to look, and see what glibc version not to be using

Just like any software.

When you are building a Puppy version.
You can only use the software that is around at the time of the build.
If glibc is only at v2.31.
That is what you have available as the newest version.

[mikewalsh]

@fredx181 :-

Fred, I think you're onto summat there..! I sort of recognise some of the items in libc-bin, but the entire contents of the libc6 package are very familiar to me.

The libstdc++6 package may be required as well. This gives you libstdc++.so.6, the standard implementation of the C++ libraries. I think this is usually built as a matched item at the same time as the 'C' libraries. Perhaps not strictly necessary, but it never hurts to use the version from the same release as where you rip the libc6 stuff from. This is what watchdog always did with his glibc-tweaked browser builds.

(I have come across the odd app that is happy with the existing glibc version, but won't work until you upgrade libstdc++.so.6 by itself.)

I think you've given bigpup what he's been repeatedly requesting.....at long last.

Mike.

[mikewalsh]

Just as a follow-up - for the real geeks among you - this web-page will tell you absolutely everything you could possibly want to know about the standard C & C++ libraries. (And THEN some.....!)

http://chenweixiang.github.io/2015/12/1 ... aries.html

Includes descriptions of what each individual library is used for, and what each one does, and how it's used by the rest of the libc6 suite.....

Mike.

[amethyst]

@bigpup
You seem to have an issue with compiling. Better to ask in the how to section under "compile", eh?

Well maybe, but the how-to section is suppose to be for topics that you make, specifically telling people how to do something, not ask how to.

However, looking at most of the topics there.

They do seem to be just that.

Asking how to compile something specific.

Well, that's open for different interpretation since it's nowhere stated as such. Maybe "Beginners Help" for you then?

[jamesbond]

@fredx181

Thanks very much for the info on how you did an update!!

You seem to understand what this topic is about.

And nobody thanked me?

What's the the difference between my post:

HOW DO YOU DO IT???

Not by compiling.

I don't do this sort of thing myself (I agree with @fredx181's sentiment), but from what I've gathered, most folks get an __already compiled__ glibc from somewhere (from newer Ubuntu/Debian depending on Puppy's upstream distro), usually in form of a package, and then transplant it into the old puppy (by deleting the old one, and then put in the new one).

And fred's post?

HOW DO YOU DO IT???

Here's my report of experiment on my Debian Buster 64-bit by replacing GLIBC with the contents of extracted packages libc6 and libc-bin from Bookworm (GLIBC version 2.36)

https://packages.debian.org/en/bookworm ... 6/download
https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/am ... n/download
(just brute forced the files to replace in the system, no "apt" used)

[amethyst]

viewtopic.php?p=95983#p95983I've done this glibc switch many times before. Posted very early in this thread, should I also ask for credit now? LOL