Linux Binary Compatibility

[Andy Miller]

Incase you aren't following the Ogre BBS I thought I'd ask the question here...

 

[Quote]

And a "bigger" question to the group relating to this  (and excuse the ignorance as I've been out of the Linux space for about 6-7 years, yes Linux did exist back then :) )...

Just how compatible are binaries built on one system with another ?  Has Libc etc standardised enough that we can start collecting binary builds of boost/gccxml/etc and posting them on the web site so that others don't have the pain of third party builds??  -- this way they can focus on the Python-Ogre pain only :)

[End Quote]

Cheers Andy

[Mike Handverger]

I can't totally answer this as I don't have too much experience in
this area, but I can say that I just copied Python-Ogre (and Ogre/
CEGUI) over to a laptop I just built and it worked ok. Granted, it was
a total hack job-- I had to copy specific versions of the various
libraries that Ogre depended on. Also, my desktop is Debian, and the
laptop Ubuntu. The two are fairly closely related as far as Linux
goes. I can't say you'd have the same experience going from Debian to
Red Hat or SuSE. It did work fine though.

Generally, what is done is to build a bunch of packages for various
distributions in their native package distribution format (.deb for
Debian, .rpm for Red Hat, etc). I'm not entirely sure how most
projects go about this and whether you need to have a system available
of each type or not. However, I have in the past had fairly good luck
making .debs out of .rpms with rpm2deb or whatever it's called. That
could be one option since I think you have 90% of all Linux boxes
covered by offering .deb and .rpm. :) The remaining problem would be
differences between major releases of the distros. And again, what is
usually done is to build packages for the most recent versions.

Hope that helps.

Thanks,

Mike

[Lakin Wecker]

[Quote]

And a "bigger" question to the group relating to this  (and excuse the ignorance as I've been out of the Linux space for about 6-7 years, yes Linux did exist back then :) )...

Just how compatible are binaries built on one system with another ?  Has Libc etc standardised enough that we can start collecting binary builds of boost/gccxml/etc and posting them on the web site so that others don't have the pain of third party builds??  -- this way they can focus on the Python-Ogre pain only :)

As Mike pointed out, most linux sites will post binary packages for each distribution.  Typically they have some build machines based on each distribution that will update the packages when new source is released. 

Autopackage is an option for binary distributions.  It might be a solution for those who don't want to bother with any of the build process.

Lakin

[Game_Ender]

We could do is provide a script that will download and install CMake
and Bjam. The get Boost, GCC-XML and then compile and install them as
well. It could use checkinstall to generate the package in the proper
format for the user. If you wanted to go further it could download
CEGUI, OIS, and OgreNewt, then patch, compile and install them as
well. Now all that won't be quick, and will be a lot like ports
system of BSD or portage of Gentoo but you willl have no binary
compatibility problems.