Bug 837901

Summary:	Wanted: 32-bit static boost libraries
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Nadav Har'El <nyh>
Component:	mash	Assignee:	Bill Nottingham <notting>
Status:	CLOSED RAWHIDE	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	unspecified	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	17	CC:	dcantrell, denis.arnaud_fedora, dennis, notting, pertusus, pmachata, rvokal
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Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
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Last Closed:	2012-07-24 20:39:20 UTC	Type:	Bug
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Description Nadav Har'El 2012-07-05 18:43:55 UTC

Even on x86_64 systems, each shared library is available in two versions, x86_64 and i686, so that 32-bit can be run, or compiled (with gcc -m32). Boost is no exception, and boost-thread (for example) is available in both x86_64 and i686 variants, even on a x86_64 installation.

In is unfortunate, then, that the corresponding *static* libraries - the "boost-static" package - is NOT available as i686, only x86_64. This means that I cannot compile my C++ programs with "-m32 -static", which is important to me - for generating self-contained Linux binaries.

Note that other important libraries are available in the static i686 versions - e.g., glibc-static.i686 and libstdc++.i686 are available on x86_64 installations.

I assume that adding the static i686 package to Fedora is easy, a matter of configuring a flag in the package build system.

Comment 1 Petr Machata 2012-07-09 06:54:28 UTC

We do build it, and presumably it is available in straight i686 setting:
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=326852
I think that absence of i686 static packages from x86_64 repository is a distribution choice.

Comment 2 Bill Nottingham 2012-07-09 19:05:13 UTC

Correct; it's only included for the minimal case of glibc and libstdc++.

Comment 3 Nadav Har'El 2012-07-09 19:26:13 UTC

The problem is that I've come to depend on "-m32 -static" working, and when I started using Boost (because C++11 has severe backward ABI compatibility issues...), I hit a brick wall - "-m32 -static" can no longer work.

I'm curious - why can't "yum install boost-static.i686" on x86_64 simply download a package from the *i686* repository and install it? Why do we need another copy of the same file in the x86_64 repository, and then we need to start worrying about what we put there and what we don't? If yum just took the package from the i686 repository, I could ask to install even the most esoteric i686 library, and it would just work.

Comment 4 Bill Nottingham 2012-07-09 20:24:48 UTC

Splitting the repo up that way doubles the number of configured repos, doubles the repodata download, introduces conflicting RPMs, and so on. It's much simpler to have a coherent single repo that includes what's needed for multilib. 

It appears we could allow all -static packages into the repo and they at least wouldn't conflict. Whether the -devel packages they rely on would is a different issue.

Comment 5 Bill Nottingham 2012-07-24 20:39:20 UTC

Changed in mash-0.5.29. This should percolate out through rawhide in the next couple of days; it won't be changed for earlier releases.