Re: [gentoo-dev] libpcre.so.3 - Compatibility with Debian

[James Le Cuirot]

On Thu, 11 Aug 2016 11:05:00 -0400
Ian Stakenvicius <axs@g.o> wrote:

> On 11/08/16 10:57 AM, Mart Raudsepp wrote:
> > Ühel kenal päeval, N, 11.08.2016 kell 12:56, kirjutas Ulrich
> > Mueller:
> >>>>>>> On Thu, 11 Aug 2016, James Le Cuirot wrote:
> >>
> >>>> Have you asked Debian why they are doing that?
> >>
> >>> I did find out but had since forgotten. Here it is:
> >>> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=380725#10
> >>
> >> So they are aware of the issue since 10 years, but chose not to fix
> >> it? Seriously, there's no good reason to dance to their tune
> >> then.
> >
> > It's not to dance to Debians tune, it's to dance to Valve tunes,
> > which happens to create its runtimes from Ubuntu packages.
> > I strongly believe that it's important to have such a use case as
> > Steam work problem-free in Gentoo. It's currently too messy, with
> > and without using steam runtime.
> > In the former case (using steam runtime), there are
> > incompatibilities between libraries found in the steam runtime, and
> > those that it doesn't include and assumes the system provides
> > (primarily mesa and deps); each steam runtime version you get to
> > hack around things by removing a small selection of libraries from
> > the steam runtime dir to get stuff working; a 1-2 month old upgrade
> > I haven't even managed to get to work yet on a more up to date
> > machine. In the latter case (forcing to not use steam runtime),
> > it's near impossible right now to get a set of 32bit binaries to
> > satisfy even steam client itself without lots of trial and error,
> > let alone some 32bit game.
> >
> >>> I'm fine with putting it in libpcre-debian package as kentnl
> >>> suggested.
> >>
> >> I still think that the libpcre.so.3 compatibility link shouldn't be
> >> installed in a generally visible location. Install it in a specific
> >> directory instead, and start your binary with a wrapper which will
> >> add that directory to LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
> >
> > Isn't this a use case for ldscripts, e.g like gen_usr_ldscript
> > toolchain.eclass function does, except for pointing libpcre.so.3 to
> > libpcre.so.1 (so can't use that eclass function, but could just pre-
> > create one to $FILESDIR if it works)?
> > The important points should be:
> > 1) No compilation/linking done on Gentoo should possibly end up with
> > putting libpcre.so.3 in its DT_NEEDED
> > 2) libpcre.so should link to libpcre.so.1
> >
> > If we can satisfy these, I don't see a reason to mess around with
> > some extra package.
> > Debian reasoning of having stuck with libpcre.so.3 historically is
> > sound as well, especially if upstream will never use that, given
> > libpcre2.so.x or however they soname pcre2-10+. Also, given PCRE2,
> > and given debians todays situation with this, I would also
> > technically choose not to change this, as things should migrate
> > over to PCRE2.
> >
> > Mart
>
> Wouldn't the most simple solution here would be to make a symlink for
> libpcre.so.3 within the local bindir for each Valve or whatever
> package that needs it?  This is a binary-package-supporting hack,
> might as well do it in the binary packages that need it.  You might
> still need to wrap the binary to set some environment stuff, not sure;
> either way it doesn't seem to make sense to make this a system-wide
> thing.

We don't package Steam itself and doing so isn't viable. We package
upstream's script for bootstrapping it under the user's HOME. As such,
there is nowhere to create such a symlink. It's not actually Steam
itself that requires libpcre.so.3 but (at least) one of its games. You
similarly can't create a symlink for each game because they also get
installed under HOME or some other user-defined location.

I have summed up the feedback. I have also considered that we don't
install the likes of libpng12.so.0 to a different location, even though
this is also there solely to satisfy pre-compiled binaries. We don't
even have a separate package for that though I will gladly compromise
on that point in this case. With all that in mind, I am going to
install to /lib using a libpcre-debian package. Sorry if you disagree
but since when do we all agree on anything? :)

Regards,
-- 
James Le Cuirot (chewi)
Gentoo Linux Developer