[gentoo-user] Running 3rd party apps intended for Ubuntu/RedHat

[gentoo-user] Running 3rd party apps intended for Ubuntu/RedHat

[Grant Edwards]

There are a handful of 3rd party, closed-source apps that I run on my
Gentoo systems.  Often they're available for RedHat or Ubuntu,
sometimes for "generic" Linux.

The apps for "generic" Linux usually run without too much trouble,
since they tend to include most of the libraries they need bundled
with the package or linked statically with the executable.

Apps packaged for RedHat or Ubuntu tend to rely on the host for far
more libraries (e.g. Qt or Gtk and underlying X11 stuff).  Sometimes I
have to copy some libraries from a RedHat or Ubuntu system and set
LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to that set of "private" libraries to get
these apps running.  Manually figuring out which libraries are
required is a time-consuming and error-prone process.  One of the ones
I use regularly is going to stop working one of these days because it
depends on qtwebkit-4.8, which has been EOL'ed on Gentoo.  [So I'll
have to grab one more library from an Ubuntu system.]

I've been thinking about trying to automate this by installing the app
on an Ubuntu or RedHat system and then running a bash script that uses
ldd et alia to find and bundle up the set of required library files.
(How deep to recurse in the tree of library dependencies will be a big
question.)

If I understand what containers are (never used them), it occurs to me
that if I bundle up everything all the way down to libc and libgcc, I
might as well be using a container, right?

Is this a good use case for containers, or is there some other way to
do this?

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! Yes, but will I
                                  at               see the EASTER BUNNY in
                              gmail.com            skintight leather at an
                                                   IRON MAIDEN concert?

Re: [gentoo-user] Running 3rd party apps intended for Ubuntu/RedHat

[james]

On 8/21/18 6:25 PM, Grant Edwards wrote:
> There are a handful of 3rd party, closed-source apps that I run on my
> Gentoo systems.  Often they're available for RedHat or Ubuntu,
> sometimes for "generic" Linux.
> 
> The apps for "generic" Linux usually run without too much trouble,
> since they tend to include most of the libraries they need bundled
> with the package or linked statically with the executable.
> 
> Apps packaged for RedHat or Ubuntu tend to rely on the host for far
> more libraries (e.g. Qt or Gtk and underlying X11 stuff).  Sometimes I
> have to copy some libraries from a RedHat or Ubuntu system and set
> LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to that set of "private" libraries to get
> these apps running.  Manually figuring out which libraries are
> required is a time-consuming and error-prone process.  One of the ones
> I use regularly is going to stop working one of these days because it
> depends on qtwebkit-4.8, which has been EOL'ed on Gentoo.  [So I'll
> have to grab one more library from an Ubuntu system.]
> 
> I've been thinking about trying to automate this by installing the app
> on an Ubuntu or RedHat system and then running a bash script that uses
> ldd et alia to find and bundle up the set of required library files.
> (How deep to recurse in the tree of library dependencies will be a big
> question.)
> 
> If I understand what containers are (never used them), it occurs to me
> that if I bundle up everything all the way down to libc and libgcc, I
> might as well be using a container, right?
> 
> Is this a good use case for containers, or is there some other way to
> do this?
> 

An alternative might be to use flatpak where applicable?


https://flatpak.org/setup/Gentoo/


I too am interested in a direct answer to your question. Surely options
for gentoo, for things not in the portage tree or overlays, needs to be
be robustly developed, imho.

hth,
James

[gentoo-user] Re: Running 3rd party apps intended for Ubuntu/RedHat

[Grant Edwards]

On 2018-08-21, james <garftd@verizon.net> wrote:
> On 8/21/18 6:25 PM, Grant Edwards wrote:

>> There are a handful of 3rd party, closed-source apps that I run on my
>> Gentoo systems.  Often they're available for RedHat or Ubuntu,
>> sometimes for "generic" Linux.
[...]
>> I've been thinking about trying to automate this by installing the
>> app on an Ubuntu or RedHat system and then running a bash script that
>> uses ldd et alia to find and bundle up the set of required library
>> files. (How deep to recurse in the tree of library dependencies will
>> be a big question.)
>> 
>> If I understand what containers are (never used them), it occurs to
>> me that if I bundle up everything all the way down to libc and
>> libgcc, I might as well be using a container, right?
>> 
>> Is this a good use case for containers, or is there some other way to
>> do this?
>
> An alternative might be to use flatpak where applicable?
>
> https://flatpak.org/setup/Gentoo/

I've seen flatpack, but it seems to be intended for developers who are
building applications.  It wasn't at all obvious that it could be used
to package an application binary contained in a .rpm or .deb file.

I've also been reading up on appimage:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppImage

It too, is primarily intended for use by the application developer,
but I have found references to using it to package an existing app
that's available as a .deb or .rpm file.  The instructions a generally
thus:

 1. Create an AppDir that contains all of the executable, config, and
    library files needed to run your application.  This is apparently
    done by hand.

 2. Use some tool or other combined with some additional configuration
    files, to create an appimage from your AppDir.

But, once I've manually done step 1, that's all I need. Create a
tarball and Bob's your uncle.  For me, converting it to an appimage
subtracts value: it just adds additional layers of complexity.

-- 
Grant

[gentoo-user] Re: Running 3rd party apps intended for Ubuntu/RedHat

[Nuno Silva]

On 2018-08-21, Grant Edwards wrote:

> There are a handful of 3rd party, closed-source apps that I run on my
> Gentoo systems.  Often they're available for RedHat or Ubuntu,
> sometimes for "generic" Linux.
>
> The apps for "generic" Linux usually run without too much trouble,
> since they tend to include most of the libraries they need bundled
> with the package or linked statically with the executable.
>
> Apps packaged for RedHat or Ubuntu tend to rely on the host for far
> more libraries (e.g. Qt or Gtk and underlying X11 stuff).  Sometimes I
> have to copy some libraries from a RedHat or Ubuntu system and set
> LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to that set of "private" libraries to get
> these apps running.  Manually figuring out which libraries are
> required is a time-consuming and error-prone process.  One of the ones
> I use regularly is going to stop working one of these days because it
> depends on qtwebkit-4.8, which has been EOL'ed on Gentoo.  [So I'll
> have to grab one more library from an Ubuntu system.]
>
> I've been thinking about trying to automate this by installing the app
> on an Ubuntu or RedHat system and then running a bash script that uses
> ldd et alia to find and bundle up the set of required library files.
> (How deep to recurse in the tree of library dependencies will be a big
> question.)
>
> If I understand what containers are (never used them), it occurs to me
> that if I bundle up everything all the way down to libc and libgcc, I
> might as well be using a container, right?
>
> Is this a good use case for containers, or is there some other way to
> do this?

This is something I would like to do as well (grabbing all the required
libraries for a given binary). Unfortunately, so far I didn't have
enough time to look into it. But here's a link from my bookmarks, which
might (or not...) be useful to you:

    http://www.ucc.asn.au/~dagobah/~dagobah/things/make-static.html

-- 
Nuno Silva

Re: [gentoo-user] Running 3rd party apps intended for Ubuntu/RedHat

[Gerrit Kühn]

On Tue, 21 Aug 2018 22:25:18 +0000 (UTC) Grant Edwards
<grant.b.edwards@gmail.com> wrote about [gentoo-user] Running 3rd party
apps intended for Ubuntu/RedHat:

> I've been thinking about trying to automate this by installing the app
> on an Ubuntu or RedHat system and then running a bash script that uses
> ldd et alia to find and bundle up the set of required library files.

Some years ago I used a tool called ermine for something similar. Looks
like it still exists (although I don't know if it will be of any use for
you today): <http://www.magicermine.com/>


cu
  Gerrit

[gentoo-user] Re: Running 3rd party apps intended for Ubuntu/RedHat

[Grant Edwards]

On 2018-08-22, <nunojsilva@ist.utl.pt> (Nuno Silva) <nunojsilva@ist.utl.pt> wrote:

> This is something I would like to do as well (grabbing all the required
> libraries for a given binary). Unfortunately, so far I didn't have
> enough time to look into it. But here's a link from my bookmarks, which
> might (or not...) be useful to you:
>
>     http://www.ucc.asn.au/~dagobah/~dagobah/things/make-static.html

Taking a snapshot of a freshly loaded app is an approach I hadn't
thought of.  It does seem like the last resort...

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! Vote for ME -- I'm
                                  at               well-tapered, half-cocked,
                              gmail.com            ill-conceived and
                                                   TAX-DEFERRED!

[gentoo-user] Re: Running 3rd party apps intended for Ubuntu/RedHat

[Grant Edwards]

On 2018-08-22, Gerrit Kühn <gerrit.kuehn@aei.mpg.de> wrote:

> Some years ago I used a tool called ermine for something similar. Looks
> like it still exists (although I don't know if it will be of any use for
> you today): <http://www.magicermine.com/>

This is pretty off-putting:

 Pricing

   When you have decided what solution is best for you, please contact
   us with the details and we will quote you a price.

That sounds expensive to me...

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! All of life is a blur
                                  at               of Republicans and meat!
                              gmail.com            

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Running 3rd party apps intended for Ubuntu/RedHat

[Gerrit Kühn]

On Wed, 22 Aug 2018 14:16:53 +0000 (UTC) Grant Edwards
<grant.b.edwards@gmail.com> wrote about [gentoo-user] Re: Running 3rd
party apps intended for Ubuntu/RedHat:

> That sounds expensive to me...

I cannot remember what price we paid back then. Both the price and your
available funds probably depend on if you're going to use it privately, for
business, in academics...


cu
  Gerrit