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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Building and distributing binaries (programming.dev)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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It's been a long day and I'm probably not in the best state of mind to be asking this question, but have you guys solved packaging yet?

I want to ship an executable with supporting files in a compressed archive, much like the Windows exe-in-a-zip pattern. I can cross-compile a Win32 C program using MinGW that will always use baseline Win32 functionality, but if I try to build for Linux I run into the whole dependency versioning situation, specifically glibc fixing its symbol version to whichever Linux I happen to be building from at the time. But if I try to static link with musl, the expectation is that everything is static linked, including system libraries that really shouldn't be.

AppImage is in the ballpark of what I'm looking for, and I've heard that Zig works as a compatibility-enhancing frontend if you're compiling C. I'd just like something simple that runs 99% of the time for non-technical end users and isn't bloated with dependencies I can't keep track of. (No containers.) Is this easily achievable?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (7 children)

I'm curious why you would think that containers are bloat? They require virtually no resources and are built into the kernel. A container is literally just a flag that you add when you exec on an executable binary.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Containers aren't too bad for storage from a developer's perspective. I'm talking about the dependency versioning bullshit of flatpak and snap specifically for end users. I don't know if AppImage technically counts as a container, but the whole point of it is to ship libraries the end user doesn't have, which implies a fundamental flaw in the hierarchical dependency tree or distribution model - the end user should already have everything they need to run software.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

How can you guarantee that depencies are compatible across versions? That's a fundamental point I think you are missing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I don't use dependencies that don't have a history of backwards compatibility, and when I do, I ship them. It's SOP to assume basic things like a GUI "just work", and it's also SOP for Ubuntu to ship non-functional programs that were broken by GTK and Qt updates. I'd rather have buggy/broken software with undefined behavior than software that just doesn't run.

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