1 <sect1 id="ch-system-glibc" xreflabel="Glibc">
2 <title>Installing Glibc-&glibc-version;</title>
3 <?dbhtml filename="glibc.html" dir="chapter06"?>
5 <para>The Glibc package contains the main C library. This library provides all
6 the basic routines for allocating memory, searching directories, opening and
7 closing files, reading and writing them, string handling, pattern matching,
8 arithmetic, and so on.</para>
10 <screen>&buildtime; &glibc-time;
11 &diskspace; &glibc-compsize;</screen>
16 <sect2><title> </title><para> </para></sect2>
19 <title>Installation of Glibc</title>
21 <para>The Glibc build system is very well self-contained and will install
22 perfectly, even though our compiler specs file and linker are still pointing
23 at <filename>/tools</filename>. We cannot adjust the specs and linker before
24 the Glibc install, because the Glibc autoconf tests would then give bogus
25 results and thus defeat our goal of achieving a clean build.</para>
27 <para>Before starting to build Glibc, remember to unset any environment
28 variables that override the default optimization flags.</para>
30 <para>The Glibc documentation recommends building Glibc outside of the source
31 directory in a dedicated build directory:</para>
33 <screen><userinput>mkdir ../glibc-build
34 cd ../glibc-build</userinput></screen>
36 <para>Now prepare Glibc for compilation:</para>
38 <screen><userinput>../&glibc-dir;/configure --prefix=/usr \
39 --disable-profile --enable-add-ons=linuxthreads \
40 --libexecdir=/usr/lib --with-headers=/usr/include \
41 --without-cvs</userinput></screen>
43 <para>The meaning of the new configure options:</para>
46 <listitem><para><userinput>--libexecdir=/usr/lib</userinput>: This changes the
47 location of the <filename>pt_chown</filename> program from its default of
48 <filename class="directory">/usr/libexec</filename> to
49 <filename class="directory">/usr/lib</filename>. The use of
50 <emphasis>libexec</emphasis> is considered not to be FHS-compliant because the
51 FHS doesn't even mention it.</para></listitem>
53 <listitem><para><userinput>--with-headers=/usr/include</userinput>: This
54 ensures that the kernel headers in <filename>/usr/include</filename> are used
55 for this build. If you don't pass this switch then the headers from
56 <filename>/tools/include</filename> are used which of course is not ideal
57 (although they should be identical). Using this switch has the advantage
58 that you will be informed immediately should you have forgotten to install the
59 kernel headers into <filename>/usr/include</filename>.</para></listitem>
62 <para>Compile the package:</para>
64 <screen><userinput>make</userinput></screen>
66 <important><para>The test suite for Glibc in this section is considered
67 <emphasis>critical</emphasis>. Our advice is to not skip it under any
68 circumstance.</para></important>
70 <para>Test the results:</para>
72 <screen><userinput>make check</userinput></screen>
74 <para>The test suite notes from <xref linkend="ch-tools-glibc"/> are still very much
75 appropriate here. Be sure to refer back there should you have any doubts.</para>
77 <para>Though it is a harmless message, the install stage of Glibc will
78 complain about the absence of <filename>/etc/ld.so.conf</filename>. Fix this
79 annoying little warning with:</para>
81 <screen><userinput>touch /etc/ld.so.conf</userinput></screen>
83 <para>And install the package:</para>
85 <screen><userinput>make install</userinput></screen>
87 <para>The locales that can make your system respond in a different language
88 weren't installed by the above command. Do it with this:</para>
90 <screen><userinput>make localedata/install-locales</userinput></screen>
92 <para>An alternative to running the previous command is to install only those
93 locales which you need or want. This can be achieved by using the
94 <command>localedef</command> command. Information on this can be found in
95 the <filename>INSTALL</filename> file in the Glibc source. However, there are
96 a number of locales that are essential for the tests of future packages to
97 pass, in particular, the <emphasis>libstdc++</emphasis> tests from GCC. The
98 following instructions, instead of the install-locales target above, will
99 install the minimum set of locales necessary for the tests to run
102 <screen><userinput>mkdir -p /usr/lib/locale
103 localedef -i de_DE -f ISO-8859-1 de_DE
104 localedef -i de_DE@euro -f ISO-8859-15 de_DE@euro
105 localedef -i en_HK -f ISO-8859-1 en_HK
106 localedef -i en_PH -f ISO-8859-1 en_PH
107 localedef -i en_US -f ISO-8859-1 en_US
108 localedef -i es_MX -f ISO-8859-1 es_MX
109 localedef -i fr_FR -f ISO-8859-1 fr_FR
110 localedef -i fr_FR@euro -f ISO-8859-15 fr_FR@euro
111 localedef -i it_IT -f ISO-8859-1 it_IT
112 localedef -i ja_JP -f EUC-JP ja_JP</userinput></screen>
114 <para>Finally, build the linuxthreads man pages:</para>
116 <screen><userinput>make -C ../&glibc-dir;/linuxthreads/man</userinput></screen>
118 <para>And install these pages:</para>
120 <screen><userinput>make -C ../&glibc-dir;/linuxthreads/man install</userinput></screen>