[gentoo-user] Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[gentoo-user] Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[Alan McKinnon]

Yes, I have read this in 
/var/portage/sys-libs/glibc/files/eblits/pkg_setup.eblit
and I understand the risks.

if has_version '>'${CATEGORY}/${PF} ; then
  eerror "Sanity check to keep you from breaking your system:"
  eerror " Downgrading glibc is not supported and a sure way to destruction"
  die "aborting to save your system"
fi

I want to do it anyway.

A multitude of apps that used to run just fine now give "free(): invalid 
pointer" errors since I upgraded to glibc-2.11

A simple downgrade doesn't work - too many apps will not start including bash. 
Has anyone done this or knows of a howto? I'm happy to rebuild a few critical 
apps statically if that's what it takes. I'm not happy chasing down half the 
system to do it :-)

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[daid kahl]

> if has_version '>'${CATEGORY}/${PF} ; then
>  eerror "Sanity check to keep you from breaking your system:"
>  eerror " Downgrading glibc is not supported and a sure way to destruction"
>  die "aborting to save your system"
> fi
>
> I want to do it anyway.

I had a circumstance where I also had to downgrade glibc.  It was a
giant pain in the ass.

The advice you gave me in July for the same question (from me that time):

> 1. Backup all user data, configs and critical files
> 2. Download a recent stage that suits your needs
> 3. Rebuild world plus add all the extra packages you use

I followed your advice and it worked very well.  From my experience,
you're only going to do the same thing if you actually try to
downgrade, and it's going to be much harder and take much longer.

What better advice to follow than your own!!

Regards,
daid

Re: [gentoo-user] Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[Alan McKinnon]

On Tuesday 17 November 2009 18:57:21 daid kahl wrote:
> > if has_version '>'${CATEGORY}/${PF} ; then
> >  eerror "Sanity check to keep you from breaking your system:"
> >  eerror " Downgrading glibc is not supported and a sure way to
> > destruction" die "aborting to save your system"
> > fi
> >
> > I want to do it anyway.
> 
> I had a circumstance where I also had to downgrade glibc.  It was a
> giant pain in the ass.
> 
> The advice you gave me in July for the same question (from me that time):
> > 1. Backup all user data, configs and critical files
> > 2. Download a recent stage that suits your needs
> > 3. Rebuild world plus add all the extra packages you use
> 
> I followed your advice and it worked very well.  From my experience,
> you're only going to do the same thing if you actually try to
> downgrade, and it's going to be much harder and take much longer.
> 
> What better advice to follow than your own!!

So this is one of those times where why words come back to haunt me?? :-)

What I think I shall do first, is downgrade binutils to 1.19.x and rebuild a 
few apps I've noticed that are affected. I think the odds of success are 
pretty good. If not, well, a reinstall-rebuild is the certain route to go

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[daid kahl]

> So this is one of those times where why words come back to haunt me?? :-)
>
> What I think I shall do first, is downgrade binutils to 1.19.x and rebuild a
> few apps I've noticed that are affected. I think the odds of success are
> pretty good. If not, well, a reinstall-rebuild is the certain route to go
>

Haunt haunt haunt...

It was good advice!

Lucky for you, it doesn't involve going to glibc-2.35 and trying to
find a stage from 2006...

~daid

[gentoo-user] Re: Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[walt]

On 11/17/2009 10:45 AM, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> So this is one of those times where why words come back to haunt me?? :-)

In another thread you just claimed that you plan to paint *one* bedroom.
Speaking as a married man, I predict that you will be revisiting that one
soon enough :o(

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[Alan McKinnon]

On Wednesday 18 November 2009 01:09:35 walt wrote:
> On 11/17/2009 10:45 AM, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > So this is one of those times where why words come back to haunt me?? :-)
> 
> In another thread you just claimed that you plan to paint *one* bedroom.
> Speaking as a married man, I predict that you will be revisiting that one
> soon enough :o(

Bedroom's gonna have to wait. Yesterday morning I wheelied the bike as per my 
usual fashion over the bump at the office park front gate.

And snapped the drive belt when the back wheel came back down on the tar.

Bloody American bikes. I can buy 3 Hondukiyamasaki superbike chains for the 
price of one American drive belt.

Back on topic now :-) Apparently upstream is aware of this silly 
behaviour/bug, maybe I should wait a bit and see if they provide a knob to go 
back to the old behaviour

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[daid kahl]

> Back on topic now :-) Apparently upstream is aware of this silly
> behaviour/bug, maybe I should wait a bit and see if they provide a knob to go
> back to the old behaviour

This sounds like a reasonable plan.  glibc downgrades aren't supported
not only because they are a pain in the rear, but they shouldn't be
required.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Mittwoch 18 November 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Wednesday 18 November 2009 01:09:35 walt wrote:
> > On 11/17/2009 10:45 AM, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > > So this is one of those times where why words come back to haunt me??
> > > :-)
> >
> > In another thread you just claimed that you plan to paint *one* bedroom.
> > Speaking as a married man, I predict that you will be revisiting that one
> > soon enough :o(
> 
> Bedroom's gonna have to wait. Yesterday morning I wheelied the bike as per
>  my usual fashion over the bump at the office park front gate.
> 
> And snapped the drive belt when the back wheel came back down on the tar.
> 
> Bloody American bikes. I can buy 3 Hondukiyamasaki superbike chains for the
> price of one American drive belt.
> 
> Back on topic now :-) Apparently upstream is aware of this silly
> behaviour/bug, maybe I should wait a bit and see if they provide a knob to
>  go back to the old behaviour
> 

the knob is the variable MALLOC_CHECK_ set it to "" (MALLOC_CHECK="")  and you 
will be fine.

Re: [gentoo-user] Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[Nagatoro]

On Tuesday 17 November 2009 17.06.45 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Yes, I have read this in
> /var/portage/sys-libs/glibc/files/eblits/pkg_setup.eblit
> and I understand the risks.
> 
> if has_version '>'${CATEGORY}/${PF} ; then
>   eerror "Sanity check to keep you from breaking your system:"
>   eerror " Downgrading glibc is not supported and a sure way to
>  destruction" die "aborting to save your system"
> fi
> 
> I want to do it anyway.
> 
> A multitude of apps that used to run just fine now give "free(): invalid
> pointer" errors since I upgraded to glibc-2.11
> 
> A simple downgrade doesn't work - too many apps will not start including
>  bash. Has anyone done this or knows of a howto? I'm happy to rebuild a few
>  critical apps statically if that's what it takes. I'm not happy chasing
>  down half the system to do it :-)

http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=293527

Fixed in upstream so should be fix in Gentoo soon.

/Naga

Re: [gentoo-user] Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[Mike Edenfield]

On 11/17/2009 11:06 AM, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Yes, I have read this in
> /var/portage/sys-libs/glibc/files/eblits/pkg_setup.eblit
> and I understand the risks.
>
> if has_version '>'${CATEGORY}/${PF} ; then
>    eerror "Sanity check to keep you from breaking your system:"
>    eerror " Downgrading glibc is not supported and a sure way to destruction"
>    die "aborting to save your system"
> fi
>
> I want to do it anyway.

I have never done this on a package-managed system but I did have to 
downgrade glibc on a slackware system once.  It's very VERY ugly; all 
kinds of implementation details get exposed as special symbols, or new 
symbol versions, or whatever, that make going backwards a mess.

The way I was told to do it was to get a compiled copy of lower glibc 
version into an alternative install path, like /usr/local/glibc, and 
rebuild everything against that copy.  You could have emerge build 2.10 
into an alternative --root, or go get a binary package of 2.10 and 
uncompress it somewhere.  Then update CFLAGS and LDFLAGS to include the 
correct -L and -I parameters pointing to 
/usr/local/glibc/{lib,usr/lib,include}.

When I did it, I rebuilt everything on my system twice, just to be safe. 
  First time through, you build against the extra copy of glibc, 
including building a downgraded glibc in the proper system location, and 
having the build tools link to the correct lower version.  Then you 
remove the CFLAGS/LDFLAGS and rebuild everything again, this time 
against the downgraded version in the correct location, and then you can 
remove your extra copy.  I'm not entire positive that second one was 
strictly necessary but it worked.

Or you can just back up your data and reinstall :)

> A multitude of apps that used to run just fine now give "free(): invalid
> pointer" errors since I upgraded to glibc-2.11

Make sure you file bug reports on these.  The programs are probably 
doing buggy things that glibc used to be rather forgiving about.  I 
believe in 2.11 they added extra checks to the memory management used by 
C++ programs, though I don't know specifics.  This would catch things 
like using delete where they meant delete[], or free() on something 
allocated with new.

The standard says the behavior of this type of operation is undefined, 
so glibc is technically free to do "anything it wants".  Unfortunately, 
when glibc is nice and make that "anything" be "what you wanted it to do 
anyway" it encourages people do keep doing bad things, thus the 
ever-increasing strictness of the library.

--Mike

Re: [gentoo-user] Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Dienstag 17 November 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Yes, I have read this in
> /var/portage/sys-libs/glibc/files/eblits/pkg_setup.eblit
> and I understand the risks.
> 
> if has_version '>'${CATEGORY}/${PF} ; then
>   eerror "Sanity check to keep you from breaking your system:"
>   eerror " Downgrading glibc is not supported and a sure way to
>  destruction" die "aborting to save your system"
> fi
> 
> I want to do it anyway.
> 
> A multitude of apps that used to run just fine now give "free(): invalid
> pointer" errors since I upgraded to glibc-2.11
> 
> A simple downgrade doesn't work - too many apps will not start including
>  bash. Has anyone done this or knows of a howto? I'm happy to rebuild a few
>  critical apps statically if that's what it takes. I'm not happy chasing
>  down half the system to do it :-)
> 

try setting 
MALLOC_CHECK
to 0

[gentoo-user] Re: Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[Thorsten Kampe]

* Alan McKinnon (Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:06:45 +0200)
> 
> A multitude of apps that used to run just fine now give "free():
> invalid pointer" errors since I upgraded to glibc-2.11

Which ones are these? I installed glibs 2.11 on Monday and had exactly 
zero problems afterwards...

Thorsten

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[Alan McKinnon]

On Thursday 19 November 2009 16:52:39 Thorsten Kampe wrote:
> * Alan McKinnon (Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:06:45 +0200)
> 
> > A multitude of apps that used to run just fine now give "free():
> > invalid pointer" errors since I upgraded to glibc-2.11
> 
> Which ones are these? I installed glibs 2.11 on Monday and had exactly
> zero problems afterwards...
> 
> Thorsten
> 

the important ones are firefox and amarok (had to downgrade binutils to get 
amarok to access it's collection at all)



-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Donnerstag 19 November 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Thursday 19 November 2009 16:52:39 Thorsten Kampe wrote:
> > * Alan McKinnon (Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:06:45 +0200)
> >
> > > A multitude of apps that used to run just fine now give "free():
> > > invalid pointer" errors since I upgraded to glibc-2.11
> >
> > Which ones are these? I installed glibs 2.11 on Monday and had exactly
> > zero problems afterwards...
> >
> > Thorsten
> 
> the important ones are firefox and amarok (had to downgrade binutils to get
> amarok to access it's collection at all)
> 

both work fine here - with glibc 2.11 and without workarounds.

but have you tried MALLOC_CHECK_?

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[Alan McKinnon]

On Thursday 19 November 2009 17:27:26 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> On Donnerstag 19 November 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > On Thursday 19 November 2009 16:52:39 Thorsten Kampe wrote:
> > > * Alan McKinnon (Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:06:45 +0200)
> > >
> > > > A multitude of apps that used to run just fine now give "free():
> > > > invalid pointer" errors since I upgraded to glibc-2.11
> > >
> > > Which ones are these? I installed glibs 2.11 on Monday and had exactly
> > > zero problems afterwards...
> > >
> > > Thorsten
> >
> > the important ones are firefox and amarok (had to downgrade binutils to
> > get amarok to access it's collection at all)
> 
> both work fine here - with glibc 2.11 and without workarounds.
> 
> but have you tried MALLOC_CHECK_?

Not yet, that check will have to wait for later tonigh as I have just seen the 
elog for qt-core.4.6.0_rc1 (which explains why I can't launch new apps since 
lunchtime.....)
 

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Donnerstag 19 November 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Thursday 19 November 2009 17:27:26 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > On Donnerstag 19 November 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > > On Thursday 19 November 2009 16:52:39 Thorsten Kampe wrote:
> > > > * Alan McKinnon (Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:06:45 +0200)
> > > >
> > > > > A multitude of apps that used to run just fine now give "free():
> > > > > invalid pointer" errors since I upgraded to glibc-2.11
> > > >
> > > > Which ones are these? I installed glibs 2.11 on Monday and had
> > > > exactly zero problems afterwards...
> > > >
> > > > Thorsten
> > >
> > > the important ones are firefox and amarok (had to downgrade binutils to
> > > get amarok to access it's collection at all)
> >
> > both work fine here - with glibc 2.11 and without workarounds.
> >
> > but have you tried MALLOC_CHECK_?
> 
> Not yet, that check will have to wait for later tonigh as I have just seen
>  the elog for qt-core.4.6.0_rc1 (which explains why I can't launch new apps
>  since lunchtime.....)
> 

sometimes it is a good idea to read planet.gentoo.org before you do an update 
;)

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[Alan McKinnon]

On Thursday 19 November 2009 17:37:16 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> On Donnerstag 19 November 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > On Thursday 19 November 2009 17:27:26 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > > On Donnerstag 19 November 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > > > On Thursday 19 November 2009 16:52:39 Thorsten Kampe wrote:
> > > > > * Alan McKinnon (Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:06:45 +0200)
> > > > >
> > > > > > A multitude of apps that used to run just fine now give "free():
> > > > > > invalid pointer" errors since I upgraded to glibc-2.11
> > > > >
> > > > > Which ones are these? I installed glibs 2.11 on Monday and had
> > > > > exactly zero problems afterwards...
> > > > >
> > > > > Thorsten
> > > >
> > > > the important ones are firefox and amarok (had to downgrade binutils
> > > > to get amarok to access it's collection at all)
> > >
> > > both work fine here - with glibc 2.11 and without workarounds.
> > >
> > > but have you tried MALLOC_CHECK_?
> >
> > Not yet, that check will have to wait for later tonigh as I have just
> > seen the elog for qt-core.4.6.0_rc1 (which explains why I can't launch
> > new apps since lunchtime.....)
> 
> sometimes it is a good idea to read planet.gentoo.org before you do an
>  update ;)


Timeline:

T minus 10: read planet. Nothing new.
T minus 8:  emerge -avuND world
T minus 6:  examine list, fix blockers, fix dumbass USE requirements, enter
T minus 4:  do work $STUFF
T minus 2:  new planet post in RSS reader
T minus 0:  oh shit....




-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Downgrade glibc-2.11 to 2.10

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Donnerstag 19 November 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Thursday 19 November 2009 17:37:16 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > On Donnerstag 19 November 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > > On Thursday 19 November 2009 17:27:26 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > > > On Donnerstag 19 November 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > > > > On Thursday 19 November 2009 16:52:39 Thorsten Kampe wrote:
> > > > > > * Alan McKinnon (Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:06:45 +0200)
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > A multitude of apps that used to run just fine now give
> > > > > > > "free(): invalid pointer" errors since I upgraded to glibc-2.11
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Which ones are these? I installed glibs 2.11 on Monday and had
> > > > > > exactly zero problems afterwards...
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Thorsten
> > > > >
> > > > > the important ones are firefox and amarok (had to downgrade
> > > > > binutils to get amarok to access it's collection at all)
> > > >
> > > > both work fine here - with glibc 2.11 and without workarounds.
> > > >
> > > > but have you tried MALLOC_CHECK_?
> > >
> > > Not yet, that check will have to wait for later tonigh as I have just
> > > seen the elog for qt-core.4.6.0_rc1 (which explains why I can't launch
> > > new apps since lunchtime.....)
> >
> > sometimes it is a good idea to read planet.gentoo.org before you do an
> >  update ;)
> 
> Timeline:
> 
> T minus 10: read planet. Nothing new.
> T minus 8:  emerge -avuND world
> T minus 6:  examine list, fix blockers, fix dumbass USE requirements, enter
> T minus 4:  do work $STUFF
> T minus 2:  new planet post in RSS reader
> T minus 0:  oh shit....
> 

if you have buildpkg turned on, you can save yourself some time with a qt 
downgrade ;)