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

[Mike Gilbert <floppym@gentoo.org>]

On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 1:53 AM, Kent Fredric <kentnl@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Aug 2016 00:10:53 +0100
> James Le Cuirot <chewi@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> We, like almost everyone else and presumably upstream, install PCRE 8
>> as libpcre.so.1. Debian, for reasons best known to themselves, install
>> it as libpcre.so.3. With Ubuntu still being the most widely accepted
>> "standard" Linux desktop, this presents a problem when dealing with
>> pre-compiled binaries.
>>
>> I have been working on a script to replace the rather lacking
>> steam-games-meta ebuild (see steam-overlay). I'm very excited about
>> releasing it soon as I think it is a major step forwards in our
>> ability to easily run Steam without the official Ubuntu-based runtime.
>>
>> Before I put it out there, I'd like to get Alien Isolation working
>> properly. It links to libpcre.so.3. Hacking the binary might work but
>> this isn't ideal and not always an option as some games use Valve's
>> anti-cheat system, which is ruthless.
>>
>> I have found that creating a symlink in /usr/lib that points
>> to /lib/libpcre.so.1 works, except that when you run ldconfig, it
>> automatically creates another symlink from /usr/lib/libpcre.so.1 to
>> libpcre.so.3. If you create the first symlink in /lib instead then the
>> existing /lib/libpcre.so.1 holds after running ldconfig. The latter
>> location is therefore probably preferable.
>>
>> Would anyone have any issue with adding this to our libpcre package? I
>> don't foresee any problems. libpcre.so would obviously still point to
>> libpcre.so.1. I'm pretty sure there will never be another libpcre.so.3
>> as upstream have released PCRE2 as libpcre2, effectively an entirely
>> separate library.
>>
>> I could create a Steam-specific package for this but that would mean
>> adding some additional Steam-specific location to ld.so.conf, which
>> I'm trying to avoid. It would be nice to solve this generally anyway.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>
> I'd say this is the sort of thing that has more application than just
> steam.
>
> I'd just suggest a libpcre-debian package, which provides the .so via
> symlink and dependency mechanisms.
>
> That way *if* anything happens in the future, we can just introduce
> blockers in the right place.
>
> Then the applicable stuff depends on libpcre-debian for the forseeable
> future.
>
> And this way, if debian do anything else magical, we can probably copy
> them and build a libpcre like they do for interop.
>
> Essentially, the point here is to see debians libpcre is a competing
> implementation, even though we can locally pretend they're not at the
> technical level, it works as " conceptual model " for the problem we
> have.
>

Just here to add a +1 to this idea.