Re: Discussion about why GNU/Linux system upgrades cause old programs to break

"Dr. Arne Babenhauserheide" <[email protected]> Tue, 11 Aug 2026 18:19:21 +0200

Newsgroups	gmane.emacs.devel
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Johan Myréen <[email protected]> writes:

> the older versions. If some dependency of the old package is not needed anymore it is dropped, unless it is
> still needed by some other package.

You can also install the dependencies explicitly, then they should stay
available by themselves, not just as dependencies.

> Linux. Glibc would definitely be considered a system library, but I'm not sure if GTK 2.0 fits into that
> category. The list of "system libraries" and their versions would definitely be different depending on which
> distro maker you ask.

On Guix I nowadays define the dependencies for compiling a specific
package explicitly (with a guix.scm file). 

That solves building old programs, if there’s no incompatible change in
libraries.

I can also go back to previous versions of the OS as far as there are
still release packages for the required sources to build the system. But
then I don’t get updates of the libraries I pull from older versions,
and there may be incompatibilities.

Best wishes,
Arne
-- 
Unpolitisch sein
heißt politisch sein,
ohne es zu merken.
https://www.draketo.de

signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, 1.1 KB)