Re: Best way of compiling applications to run on older linux distros

[Tom Quarendon <tom dot quarendon at teamwpc dot co dot uk>]

> So, let me see.  You have a Centos4 machine that you could use to build
> (indeed, you need such a machine to do the testing) but for some reason you
> don't want to build on that box as well.
It's just the way we set our machines up. "as well" here is the key 
phrase. We rather assumed that there would be no "as well". We don't 
build one version of the windows product for windows 200, one for XP, 
one for server 2003, one for Vista etc. We just build one. I'm just 
suprised that this is the way that you have to build things for Linux.

> > Your implication is that "properly" means building a version for Centos4
> > on Centos4, a version for linux distro x on linux distro x etc etc. This
> > isn't in any way obvious, and isn't how things work for Windows, or
> > indeed Solaris, AIX, zSeries.
>
> I've already explained backwards compatibility and how it works on Linux.

Well I obvisouly didn't understand it then. Most other systems appear to 
have methods of allowing you to build on newer and run on older. This 
doesn't appear to be the case on linux. If that is so, they fine, we'll 
just build on older. Still not clear though the affect that the compiler 
has on this. If I compile on Centos4 with latest gcc 4.3.2, is that 
backward compatible? And if I build on Centos4 how compatible is that 
with SUSE for example?

> The question, Tom, is this: do you want help, or do you want to argue?
I wasn't aware that I was arguing. Just trying to understand what 
doesn't seem at all obvious to me, but then I'm clearly just being slow.

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