Re: "portable" applications

[Thomas Stover <thomas wsinnovations com>]

> Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:41:50 -0400
> From: John Zavgren <john zavgren com>
> Subject: "portable" applications
> To: gtk-app-devel-list gnome org
> Message-ID:
>         <8bea388a0906240541p1bc747c7x174a9b35828b55d4 mail gmail com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Greetings:
> I wrote a Glade-3/GTK2/G++ application on a ubuntu machine, and the
> application works great. In fact it works so well that my colleagues want to
> use it. Ujnfortunately, they are not using ubuntu (and neither was I until I
> started developing my GUI. I chose ubuntu because it seemed to support GUI
> development.)
>
> I tried running my app on a Red Hat machine and the app failed because of an
> unresolved external reference,,, missing shared object file.
>
> No big deal. I attempted to statically link my app with the assistance of
> "strace", the doctrinaire approach with embedded systems. That opened
> pandoras box! The number of references to shared object files was
> astounding.
> My intuition tells me that there must be a better way to build an
> application that will run on more than one Linux machine.
>
> Is there a simple way to statically link the esoteric aspects of my GUI
>
>   

Another approach you could take is to figure out how to make a .deb and 
.rpm files that list the packages for the libraries your app needs as 
dependencies. Not exactly the same thing you are talking about, but very 
much related. I wish I could speak from experience, but this is still on 
my mental to-do list.

It is a sign of progress when someone uses "portable" to mean support 
for  more than one linux distro. I would not recommend statically 
linking gtk. Most of the trick here is 1) portable build system (I 
endorse SCons), and 2) configuring / installing the required pieces on a 
"build box" for a "supported" target. Actually, if you get that far, the 
.deb / .rpm is not required, but a nice finishing touch.

Binary portability is somewhat of a hot-button issue for many people 
now. It's not really a strong point for Linux. Sure it would be nice, 
but it's better to not require/expect its availability. For instance, 
there will always be different CPU architectures. Or if you are like 
many in my boat, you also still have windows builds.


--
www.thomasstover.com