Re: Static compilation: segmentation fault in execution [host=x86_64, target: ia64]

On Fri, 14 Sep 2012 08:42:36 -0700
Jonathan Nieder <[email protected]> wrote:

> Neil Williams wrote:
> 
> > Static linking is not fully supported in Debian and therefore Emdebian.
> > Sometimes it might work, sometimes it will fail, sometimes it will run
> > but give you mysterious issues... "behaviour is undefined".
> 
> Just to be clear, modulo bugs, that's not actually the intent in
> Debian proper. :)  Otherwise Debian wouldn't have much reason to
> provide static libraries at all.  I suspect that when a package
> provides a broken static lib that most maintainers would not mind
> either a patch to fix it or a patch to remove the static lib.

I doubt that such bugs would get a particularly high priority in
Debian right now and are certainly unlikely to be fixed during a release
freeze. If the simplest c task won't execute when linked statically,
it's a fair sign that nobody has bothered to fixing static linkage
problems anywhere else.

Emdebian has the same intent as Debian where static linking is
concerned, but I am also realistic - right now, the amount of interest
in fixing static linkages in Debian is approaching zero (and the
interest wasn't that much higher before the release freeze). Even if the
bugs have been reported, the chances of a fix any time soon are also
approaching zero. Therefore, despite the intent, the reality is
approximately what I described. I was being pessimistic but, overall,
fair. Depends if we're describing a fix for this particular issue
(during the freeze) or the support for static linking once the freeze is
over. Sadly, I suspect that unless the same static linkage problem can
be shown on a recent box running something more popular than ia64, it
is not going to be fixable. Not enough people care about ia64 anymore
that there would be enough people also interested in static linkage on
ia64. Maybe it shouldn't be architecture-specific, but right now, we
can't tell.

-- 


Neil Williams
=============
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

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