Re: Static linked cross tools

[Marius Groeger <mgroeger at sysgo dot com>]

On Wed, 20 Oct 2004, Dan Kegel wrote:

> >   http://sources.redhat.com/ml/crossgcc/2004-04/msg00003.html
> >
> > FWIW, we have (almost) completely abandonded static linking, as it does not 
> > serve the purpose to get reliable binaries for ANY workstation. It is much 
> > safer to let references resolve dynamically until the point where it just 
> > doesn't work.
>
> Marius, you're right in general, but for toolchains,
> the problems you note with static executables do
> not seem to be an issue.  (gcc doesn't do any networking,
> for instance, so it doesn't matter that the DNS calls
> won't work).  Or have you run into problems with statically
> linked copies of *gcc* (as opposed to, say, Mozilla :-)?

So did I think ... until the tools crashed because the NLS (nat'l 
language support) mapped errno messages didn't resolve any more. What 
happens is that the statically(!) linked glibc gettext stuff accesses 
locally(!) installed text catalogs. Since gettext() does not do any 
version control on those files, the sh*t hits the fan.

Depending on your configuration, prefixes used during the compiling, 
etc you MAY GET AWAY, but chances are you won't. Just strace the tools 
and see their heuristics to locate external stuff...

You may not run into this problem if you have LANG=en, but typical 
european workstations are configured to run with the coresponding 
language. Which makes it a particularly nasty kind of "works just fine 
over here" bug. And no, you can't turn off NLS for all packages that 
easily. Some don't compile any more.

Personally, I find all of this way too uncontrollable, so I switched 
back to dynamic linking.

You have been warned... :-)

Regards,
Marius

--
Marius Groeger <mgroeger@sysgo.com>
SYSGO AG                      Embedded and Real-Time Software
Voice: +49 6136 9948 0                  FAX: +49 6136 9948 10
www.sysgo.com | www.elinos.com | www.osek.de | www.imerva.com


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