Subject: Python, minicom problems

From: [email-masked]
Date: 12 Jun 1996 21:48:01 -0000

Paul Kautz:
> Some packages seem to 'require' things they shouldn't need.  For
> example, gnuplot can run (believe it or not, I've used this)
> with a terminal of 'dumb,' outputting text graphs etc., but
> needs xlib.  I solved this last time by just installing xlib,
> even though I wasn't running X.

This is a consequence of the way that shared libraries are currently
implemented by the standard startup code that comes with gcc.  HJLu
has written a rather nice document describing the underlying
mechanisms -- I think that it should be possible to develop an
alternative strategy that lets you test for the presence of a library
at the time that you run into the first system call into that library.

The biggest issue would be deciding how to tell the compiler which
libraries should be given this special treatment.  I'm a little
uncertain that the obvious solution (do it for all shared libraries,
or do it for none) will always do the right thing for libc.

Followups to this message should go to debian-devel (or maybe
[email-masked]).

-- 
Raul