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The only problem with this approach is that glibc cannot have multiple versions running at once that's not correct. libraries have versions for a reason. the o

by em-bee 7mo ago

The only problem with this approach is that glibc cannot have multiple versions running at once that's not correct. libraries have versions for a reason. the only thing preventing the installation of multiple glibc versions is the package manager or the package versioning. this makes building against an older version of glibc non-trivial, because there isn't a ready made package that you can just install. the workarounds take effort: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2856438/how-can-i-link-to-a-specific-glibc-version https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2856438/how-can-i-link-t... the problem for companies developing on linux is that it is not trivial

seba_dos1 7mo ago
You compile in a container/chroot with the userspace you target. Done. In the context of games, that will likely be Steam Runtime.
- em-bee 7mo ago
  it's not that simple. you want to be able to use a modern toolchain (compilers that support the latest standards) but build a binary that runs on older systems. the only way to achieve that is to get the older libraries installed on a newer system, or you could try backporting the new toolchain to the older system. but that's a lot harder.
  - seba_dos1 7mo ago
    It may be hard-ish, sometimes. Sometimes it's a breeze. And sometimes you can just use host's toolchain with container's sysroot and proceed as if you were cross-compiling. Most of the time it's not a big deal.
akdev1l 7mo ago
glibc must match the linker so you would need a separate linker and the binaries usually have a hardcoded path to the system linker (and you need to binary patch the stuff - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/847179/multiple-glibc-libraries-on-a-single-host https://stackoverflow.com/questions/847179/multiple-glibc-li...) So in practice you can only have 1 linker, 1 glibc (unless you do chroot or containers and at that point just build your stuff in Ubuntu 12.04 or whatever environment)

by em-bee 7mo ago

seba_dos1 7mo ago

You compile in a container/chroot with the userspace you target. Done. In the context of games, that will likely be Steam Runtime.

em-bee 7mo ago
it's not that simple. you want to be able to use a modern toolchain (compilers that support the latest standards) but build a binary that runs on older systems. the only way to achieve that is to get the older libraries installed on a newer system, or you could try backporting the new toolchain to the older system. but that's a lot harder.
- seba_dos1 7mo ago
  It may be hard-ish, sometimes. Sometimes it's a breeze. And sometimes you can just use host's toolchain with container's sysroot and proceed as if you were cross-compiling. Most of the time it's not a big deal.

akdev1l 7mo ago

glibc must match the linker so you would need a separate linker and the binaries usually have a hardcoded path to the system linker (and you need to binary patch the stuff - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/847179/multiple-glibc-libraries-on-a-single-host https://stackoverflow.com/questions/847179/multiple-glibc-li...) So in practice you can only have 1 linker, 1 glibc (unless you do chroot or containers and at that point just build your stuff in Ubuntu 12.04 or whatever environment)