Gentoo supports desktops/servers running older glibc versions...and for the most part, there are few if any packages in gentoo that require glibc upgrades..gcc/c++ code is the usual suspect. Unfortunately, recent icedtea ebuild tree cleaning means that systems with glibc < 2.15 can no longer run icedtea. example: [U] dev-java/icedtea-bin Available versions: (6) 6.1.12.7^s (7) ~7.2.4.3^s {+X +alsa cjk +cups doc examples nsplugin source} Installed versions: 6.1.12.6(6)^s(11:36:22 PM 11/04/2013)(X alsa cups doc examples nsplugin -cjk -source) Homepage: http://icedtea.classpath.org Description: A Gentoo-made binary build of the IcedTea JDK The minor update from 6.1.12.6 to 6.1.12.7 now forces a glibc update. That seems strange...is this just a bug fix? Is there any reason we can't leave 6.1.12.6 in the tree for systems that can't update glibc?
(In reply to Matthew Marlowe from comment #0) > Gentoo supports desktops/servers running older glibc versions... umm, no, it doesn't. only latest stable is supported. the others are there for historical reasons, and for users who can deal with it.
(In reply to Matthew Marlowe from comment #0) > The minor update from 6.1.12.6 to 6.1.12.7 now forces a glibc update. That > seems strange...is this just a bug fix? Is there any reason we can't leave > 6.1.12.6 in the tree for systems that can't update glibc? It's a security bump, if you really need icedtea for older glibc I'd suggest to file a bug upstream and explain your case and with a little luck they can actually do something about it. http://icedtea.classpath.org/bugzilla/
Fair enough....except that I couldn't find anywhere in the icetea website where it lists minimum glibc requirements and those requirements for other software it mentions are extremely lax/ancient..still, perfectly fine if this is a requirement from upstream. Just skimming the changelog, I had the impression that the glibc change was instituted because a maintainer updated his own test box and wanted to have the package reflect the glibc version running on it rather than for any security or upstream purpose.
