[Nix-dev] Re: Revision 19868 breaks checkinstall on RedHat host systems

[Peter Simons]

Hi Ludovic,

 >> Revision 19868 introduced a patch to fix compilation of checkinstall on
 >> Glibc 2.11, but unfortunately, it breaks compilation of the package on
 >> older version -- such as glibc 2.5, which is used on Red Hat host
 >> systems.
 >
 > Note that glibc 2.5 is very old.

no kidding. That's why it works on systems that have a Red Hat kernel.
Unfortunately, using glibc 2.5 is the only way to get a working Nix
installation on Red Hat Linux. The issue has been discussed on this list
a couple of times.


 >> Does anyone have a suggestion how to remedy that problem?
 >
 > Perhaps you could make the patch conditional on whether ‘stdenv’
 > contains a ‘glibc’ attribute?

That won't help, unfortunately, because the glibc 2.5 systems have a
stdenv.glibc attribute, too. It's just that it's version 2.5.

Of course, it's possible to use some other suitable mechanism to
determine whether that bogus scandir patch can be applied or not, but I
guess my favorite solution would be for someone to fix that patch so
that it just doesn't break checkinstall. Then we can apply it
unconditionally. An obvious candidate for that job might be the person
who committed that patch in the first place, maybe? *cough* *cough*.

Take care,
Peter