Porting to the Linux Standard Base 41
An anonymous reader writes "If an application conforms to the Linux Standard Base (LSB), and a flavor of Linux is LSB compliant, the application is guaranteed to run. This tutorial, written by Martin Streicher, Editor in Chief of Linux Magazine, ensures that your code runs reliably on as many Linux flavors as possible. It shows you how to port your apps to the Linux Standard Base, then takes you through the LSB test tools to verify conformance."
LSB is worthless (Score:1, Flamebait)
"/." opinions are worthless (Score:1, Insightful)
1-LSB is more than just RPM.
2-There's nothing wrong with RPM. Just the people who use it.
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:2)
They chose to base it on a file archive with a header. It was a bit unlucky that they picked the
The real problems with LSB lie elsewhere. I have never used an LSB compliant application and I run Linux >95% of the time.
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:2)
If they did that, what would an LSB-compliant system have to look like? It would completely defeat the purpose of having the standard in the first place.
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:1)
The aim (I might be wrong here) was to be totally distro independant but make all the key bits be in the same place especially in
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:4, Insightful)
There is nothing wrong with the RPM format (I do prefer Debian, though - it's a more unix-y way of doing things). It's just that for a long time there was no centralized repository of RPM packages, so everything was a mishmash, and led you to dependency hell. Debian though, has a central repository and enforced the provision that all packages must have dependencies on things inside the repository to be accepted. It's not a format issue, it's a policy issue. E.g., I can't take my Debian installation, point it at Ubuntu's servers, then just do "apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade" and expect my system to migrate to Ubuntu. Most likely I'd be left with a half-functional mess. Is
RedHat never enforced the policy nor maintained a central repository of packages. Debian has. And for a while, Debian had superior package management tools.
In fact, I really preferred the old Familiar Linux IPK format - you only need gzip and tar (it was all tarballs) to hack through those packages rather than debian's usage of ar and tarballs.
(And these days, with apt-rpm and yum, dependency issues have reduced significantly).
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:2)
How much space can a statically linked program take? 10MB? 20MB? 30MB? everyone has 10GB of unused space nowadays...
At least there should be that option, I will use it in order to avoid the hassle of having to download dependenci
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:1, Insightful)
Because source-based installation is pefectly safe, as we all read every line of code in the tarballs we
Smartass.
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:3, Informative)
Not a flaw, basic sysadmin'ing... don't want to users fucking things up.
With the --prefix and --root switches for rpm, you can install software&libraries in your home direct
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:2)
For which you will update your application to the newest version containing already the patch uh? nothing too different to what happens now (for example firefox 1.0.0 ~ 1.5 updates). This would be achieved eith
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:2)
Yes, you're right. Go forth and spread your vision far&wide, so that the unwashed masses might be enlightened.
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:3, Insightful)
You do realise it also saves RAM as well, if the library is in use in multiple applications? Not everyone has 10GB free RAM. Or even 10MB free RAM.
Besides: my current Linux system is running of a 3.3GB partition on my total 10GB hard disc. Not everyone runs current hardware, and many Linux users consider the fact that it is better at supporting old hardware than current versions of Windows
Static is more trouble patching (Score:3, Insightful)
There is also a small slowdown with dynamic apps, load and runtime, but that has never bothered me.
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:1)
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:2)
You say that now, but just wait until you try to statically link each and every KDE or GNOME app with 50 MB worth of libraries. I could easily see that taking up (50 MB * 500 programs =) 25 GIGABYTES worth of disk space.
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:2)
Its slighty more involved than "vim
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:2)
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:2)
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:1)
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:2)
Re:LSB is worthless (Score:2, Informative)
I think LSB is great. For instance, people can write OpenGL-software and target lsb-graphics; instant portability.
And, most important of all, if you're eve
Restricted access to spec? (Score:3)
Re:Restricted access to "public" spec? (Score:2)
Re:Restricted access to spec? (Score:1)
Re:LSB just for packages? (Score:2)
You misunderstand LSB (Score:2)
It' looks like it only applies to package formats. Am I wrong?
Yes, you are almost completely wrong. LSB applies to much more than package file formatting. LSB distributions have a common set of libraries and such, so that every single LSB package has the exact same set of dependencies--those defined by the spec. There is even a package NAMING convention that must be followed to ensure there are no package naming conflicts.
I would really love to see t
Re:Not required (Score:3, Insightful)
Autotools are the wrong solution, LSB is the right one. Autofoo is an awful build system (the nick "autohell" has its reasons, just see the results in google). They are horrible to use, the scripts are a nightmare to debug, and M4 is just plain from hell. SCons, CMake, Premake, Jam are better tools (btw, CMake has been created by autotools veterans and creators). The interest in better build systems is quite high, just look at the KDE guys (they moved everything from autofoo to CMake), or at Blender
Re:Not required (Score:2)
Why use LSB? (Score:3, Informative)
FTFT (from the...tutorial): LSB has binary compatibility standards, so I can compile once and run anywhere. But if the application is GPL and nontrivial, it shouldn't be that hard to get it into the package repositories in question. Otherwise, it's probably in a scripting language, so the end user doesn't have to build or install it anyway.
This is really only important for commercial Linux software.
Re:Why use LSB? (Score:1)