Re: Upraded from 7.0.1 to 7.0.2 --> could not run ELF binary

On Thu, 3 Nov 2016, Ray Phillips wrote:
> compiled on 7.0.1) but I've discovered they're x86-64 binaries.  I
> must have upgraded an amd64 7.0.1 system (on a USB key in this case)
> to i386 7.0.2. :(

OK :)


> Is it generally wise to expect programs
> will need to be recompiled when going from one major version number to
> another?

Maybe for major upgrades, but 7.0.1->7.0.2 is not a major upgrade in 
NetBSD's sense. See [1] for a bit of explanation.


> Is there any way to check if it'll be necessary before doing
> the upgrade?

I'd run ldd(1) on the binary and see if it finds all its shared libraries.
If not, rebuild. If so, I'd expect NetBSD to version ABIs so that the old 
calls are still available.

Of course rebuilding everything every now and then is a good thing, to get 
rid of old bugs (with new versions). Personally, I use pkgsrc on Mac and 
Linux in my $HOME directory without root, and it's ain a versioned 
directory (currently at ~/pkg12). I can try to build everything new in 
a new directory (e.g. ~/pkg13) and if everything is in place I can 
switch my ~/pkg symlink. pkgsrc makes this pretty easy.


  - Hubert

[1] http://www.feyrer.de/NetBSD/blog.html/nb_20161030_1327.html