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digitalmars.D - Using dmd on older machines

reply Georg Wrede <georg.wrede iki.fi> writes:
I wanted to use dmd at another site, so I took my laptop and the latest 
dmd 2 zip.

All went well, till I ran dmd, and got an error message about it needing 
a newer libc, I had only libc-2.3.5.so on a Fedora version from 2005.

I thought some expletives about software vendors always compiling their 
products on the absolutely latest OS version, thus introducing 
gratuitous dependencies on brand-new libraries, where most often they 
could compile with a 5 year old version, and make clients happy.

But, thanks to Walter, /I had the source/, so I compiled dmd from 
scratch. I got a surprise when I tried to use it. Errors I can't figure out:

$ cat foo.d
import std.stdio;

void main(){}

$ dmd foo.d
/home/georg/lang/d/dmd/linux/bin/../../src/phobos/std/traits.d(855): 
template instance isStaticArray!(const(int)[]) does not match template 
declaration isStaticArray(T : U[N],U,uint N)
/home/georg/lang/d/dmd/linux/bin/../../src/phobos/std/traits.d(855): 
Error: expression isStaticArray!(const(int)[]) of type void does not 
have a boolean value
/home/georg/lang/d/dmd/linux/bin/../../src/phobos/std/traits.d(855): 
static assert  (!isStaticArray!(const(int)[])) is not evaluatable at 
compile time
$

Interestingly, on Fedora 10, I can recompile dmd and actually use it.

What should I do?
Mar 10 2009
parent reply dsimcha <dsimcha yahoo.com> writes:
== Quote from Georg Wrede (georg.wrede iki.fi)'s article

 I wanted to use dmd at another site, so I took my laptop and the latest
 dmd 2 zip.
 All went well, till I ran dmd, and got an error message about it needing
 a newer libc, I had only libc-2.3.5.so on a Fedora version from 2005.
 I thought some expletives about software vendors always compiling their
 products on the absolutely latest OS version, thus introducing
 gratuitous dependencies on brand-new libraries, where most often they
 could compile with a 5 year old version, and make clients happy.
 But, thanks to Walter, /I had the source/, so I compiled dmd from
 scratch. I got a surprise when I tried to use it. Errors I can't figure out:
 $ cat foo.d
 import std.stdio;
 void main(){}
 $ dmd foo.d
 /home/georg/lang/d/dmd/linux/bin/../../src/phobos/std/traits.d(855):
 template instance isStaticArray!(const(int)[]) does not match template
 declaration isStaticArray(T : U[N],U,uint N)
 /home/georg/lang/d/dmd/linux/bin/../../src/phobos/std/traits.d(855):
 Error: expression isStaticArray!(const(int)[]) of type void does not
 have a boolean value
 /home/georg/lang/d/dmd/linux/bin/../../src/phobos/std/traits.d(855):
 static assert  (!isStaticArray!(const(int)[])) is not evaluatable at
 compile time


This might be obvious to you depending on how much you've been reading these
newsgroups lately, but double check to make sure you've wiped all the old src
stuff from previous releases.  Also, make sure that you put the resulting dmd
binary in dmd/linux/bin/ so all the libraries and stuff are where dmd expects
them
to be.

Oh yeah, and Walter, thank you for the opensource backend is an absolute
godsend.
 I encountered the same problem a while back w/ GLIBC, and as a matter of fact
just a few hours ago, I got DMD to compile w/ this ancient GLIBC version and run
on some ancient Linux distro.  However, given that DMD seems to work on ancient
GLIBC, it might make sense to distribute the prebuilt binaries against an older
version.  As far as I can tell they're forward compatible.  Around here we have
a
zillion computers, some with ancient Linux distros and some with newer ones, and
it seems like if you compile DMD on an ancient distro it will work on a newer
(modulo not having 32-bit pthreads present, etc), but not the other way around.
Mar 10 2009
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
dsimcha wrote:

 Oh yeah, and Walter, thank you for the opensource backend is an absolute
godsend.
  I encountered the same problem a while back w/ GLIBC, and as a matter of fact
 just a few hours ago, I got DMD to compile w/ this ancient GLIBC version and
run
 on some ancient Linux distro.  However, given that DMD seems to work on ancient
 GLIBC, it might make sense to distribute the prebuilt binaries against an older
 version.  As far as I can tell they're forward compatible.  Around here we
have a
 zillion computers, some with ancient Linux distros and some with newer ones,
and
 it seems like if you compile DMD on an ancient distro it will work on a newer
 (modulo not having 32-bit pthreads present, etc), but not the other way around.


When I compile dmd with the old lib, I tick off 50% of the linux people 
who don't have the old .so installed. When I compile it with the new 
lib, I tick off the other 50% who don't have the new one installed.
Mar 10 2009
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 When I compile dmd with the old lib, I tick off 50% of the linux people 
 who don't have the old .so installed. When I compile it with the new 
 lib, I tick off the other 50% who don't have the new one installed.


That's one reason why I haven't been too interested in distributing 
phobos as a shared library.
Mar 10 2009
parent reply Georg Wrede <georg.wrede iki.fi> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 When I compile dmd with the old lib, I tick off 50% of the linux 
 people who don't have the old .so installed. When I compile it with 
 the new lib, I tick off the other 50% who don't have the new one 
 installed.




I hope that was some time ago. If there's no solution, I can live with that.

Seems upgrading libc is non-trivial. Now I know.

I was *intrigued* by the error messages, because I wasn't expecting 
anything such. I would've thought that either the source works, or then 
not. What's "wrong"?


 That's one reason why I haven't been too interested in distributing 
 phobos as a shared library.
Mar 11 2009
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Georg Wrede wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 When I compile dmd with the old lib, I tick off 50% of the linux 
 people who don't have the old .so installed. When I compile it with 
 the new lib, I tick off the other 50% who don't have the new one 
 installed.




 
 I hope that was some time ago. If there's no solution, I can live with 
 that.
 
 Seems upgrading libc is non-trivial. Now I know.
 
 I was *intrigued* by the error messages, because I wasn't expecting 
 anything such. I would've thought that either the source works, or then 
 not. What's "wrong"?


The source works just fine. The binaries don't. The new lib distros 
don't include the old lib, and vice versa. Often the missing lib isn't 
available. It's an ongoing nuisance.

It isn't like Windows, where the basic api's have been unchanged for 
nearly 20 years.

Mac OSX is the worst of the lot, there you get a "bus error" if you 
build for 10.5 and run it on 10.4.
Mar 11 2009
next sibling parent reply Michel Fortin <michel.fortin michelf.com> writes:
On 2009-03-11 04:50:37 -0400, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> said:


 The source works just fine. The binaries don't. The new lib distros 
 don't include the old lib, and vice versa. Often the missing lib isn't 
 available. It's an ongoing nuisance.
 
 It isn't like Windows, where the basic api's have been unchanged for 
 nearly 20 years.
 
 Mac OSX is the worst of the lot, there you get a "bus error" if you 
 build for 10.5 and run it on 10.4.


Yeah, the error message is bad. But on Mac OS X if you build for 10.4 
(either by building on 10.4 or using the 10.4 SDK bundled with Xcode) 
it'll be forward-compatible with the newer versions of Mac OS X yet to 
come. For instance, I can run apps compiled on 10.0 quite well on 10.5, 
with no tweaking at all. Seems on Linux if you choose the old lib it 
won't run on the newer distos. That looks worse to me.

-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin michelf.com
http://michelf.com/
Mar 11 2009
parent reply Tomas Lindquist Olsen <tomas.l.olsen gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Michel Fortin
<michel.fortin michelf.com> wrote:

 On 2009-03-11 04:50:37 -0400, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>
 said:


 The source works just fine. The binaries don't. The new lib distros don't
 include the old lib, and vice versa. Often the missing lib isn't available.
 It's an ongoing nuisance.

 It isn't like Windows, where the basic api's have been unchanged for
 nearly 20 years.

 Mac OSX is the worst of the lot, there you get a "bus error" if you build
 for 10.5 and run it on 10.4.


 Yeah, the error message is bad. But on Mac OS X if you build for 10.4
 (either by building on 10.4 or using the 10.4 SDK bundled with Xcode) it'll
 be forward-compatible with the newer versions of Mac OS X yet to come. For
 instance, I can run apps compiled on 10.0 quite well on 10.5, with no
 tweaking at all. Seems on Linux if you choose the old lib it won't run on
 the newer distos. That looks worse to me.


This is usually not a problem as most linux software is free (as in
freedom) and has open source code though.

Commercial applications can simply provide multiple binaries. Just
like the situation is getting for XP/Vista as well (I know, it's only
really games, and it's not really the same situation, but anyway ...)

DMD source code being available is a good start, but as I understand
it, Linux distributions are still not allowed to redistribute it ? Or
binaries of a modified source build ?

-Tomas


 --
 Michel Fortin
 michel.fortin michelf.com
 http://michelf.com/
Mar 11 2009
parent reply "Denis Koroskin" <2korden gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:14:44 +0300, Tomas Lindquist Olsen
<tomas.l.olsen gmail.com> wrote:


 On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Michel Fortin
 <michel.fortin michelf.com> wrote:

 On 2009-03-11 04:50:37 -0400, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>
 said:


 The source works just fine. The binaries don't. The new lib distros  
 don't
 include the old lib, and vice versa. Often the missing lib isn't  
 available.
 It's an ongoing nuisance.

 It isn't like Windows, where the basic api's have been unchanged for
 nearly 20 years.

 Mac OSX is the worst of the lot, there you get a "bus error" if you  
 build
 for 10.5 and run it on 10.4.


 Yeah, the error message is bad. But on Mac OS X if you build for 10.4
 (either by building on 10.4 or using the 10.4 SDK bundled with Xcode)  
 it'll
 be forward-compatible with the newer versions of Mac OS X yet to come.  
 For
 instance, I can run apps compiled on 10.0 quite well on 10.5, with no
 tweaking at all. Seems on Linux if you choose the old lib it won't run  
 on
 the newer distos. That looks worse to me.


 This is usually not a problem as most linux software is free (as in
 freedom) and has open source code though.

 Commercial applications can simply provide multiple binaries. Just
 like the situation is getting for XP/Vista as well (I know, it's only
 really games, and it's not really the same situation, but anyway ...)


It's more like x86/x86_64 situation.


 DMD source code being available is a good start, but as I understand
 it, Linux distributions are still not allowed to redistribute it ? Or
 binaries of a modified source build ?

 -Tomas


Is there a need for that? Gentoo ebuild can automatically fetch source code
from digitalmars.com and compile the binary (given the ebuild, of course), and
I believe other distros can do the same.


 --
 Michel Fortin
 michel.fortin michelf.com
 http://michelf.com/
Mar 11 2009
parent Tomas Lindquist Olsen <tomas.l.olsen gmail.com> writes:
On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 1:29 PM, Denis Koroskin <2korden gmail.com> wrote:

 On Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:14:44 +0300, Tomas Lindquist Olsen
 <tomas.l.olsen gmail.com> wrote:


 On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Michel Fortin
 <michel.fortin michelf.com> wrote:

 On 2009-03-11 04:50:37 -0400, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>
 said:


 The source works just fine. The binaries don't. The new lib distros
 don't
 include the old lib, and vice versa. Often the missing lib isn't
 available.
 It's an ongoing nuisance.

 It isn't like Windows, where the basic api's have been unchanged for
 nearly 20 years.

 Mac OSX is the worst of the lot, there you get a "bus error" if you
 build
 for 10.5 and run it on 10.4.


 Yeah, the error message is bad. But on Mac OS X if you build for 10.4
 (either by building on 10.4 or using the 10.4 SDK bundled with Xcode)
 it'll
 be forward-compatible with the newer versions of Mac OS X yet to come.
 For
 instance, I can run apps compiled on 10.0 quite well on 10.5, with no
 tweaking at all. Seems on Linux if you choose the old lib it won't run on
 the newer distos. That looks worse to me.


 This is usually not a problem as most linux software is free (as in
 freedom) and has open source code though.

 Commercial applications can simply provide multiple binaries. Just
 like the situation is getting for XP/Vista as well (I know, it's only
 really games, and it's not really the same situation, but anyway ...)


 It's more like x86/x86_64 situation.


 DMD source code being available is a good start, but as I understand
 it, Linux distributions are still not allowed to redistribute it ? Or
 binaries of a modified source build ?

 -Tomas


 Is there a need for that? Gentoo ebuild can automatically fetch source code
 from digitalmars.com and compile the binary (given the ebuild, of course),
 and I believe other distros can do the same.


Maybe it's not so bad as I think, but sometimes a build fails, and
beginner programmers who, lets say wanted to try D, has no means to
fix that, and the binary is broken ...

-Tomas
Mar 11 2009
prev sibling parent Georg Wrede <georg.wrede iki.fi> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Seems upgrading libc is non-trivial. Now I know.

 I was *intrigued* by the error messages, because I wasn't expecting 
 anything such. I would've thought that either the source works, or 
 then not. What's "wrong"?


 
 The source works just fine. The binaries don't.


So, if I compile dmd without errors, then, depending on the particular 
OS version, the internal logic of dmd becomes different?
Mar 11 2009