GRASS, Linux and libc

[D D Gray]

Leon Alexander wrote:

> Hi All
>
> I tried installing Grass 4.2 and 5.0beta, from the binaries on the website.
> However, I get the same error message with both versions, namely, "gis_set"
> expects library files I do not have.
>
> "ldd gis_set" lists "libcurses.so.1" and "libc.so.5" as "not found". Is
> this a common problem with Redhat linux 5.1, kernel 2.0.34. Is there a
> fix for this problem?
>
> If this answer is in the archives, I apologise. I looked but did not
> find any suitable fix.
>
> Thanks
> Leon
>
> Leon Alexander
> Leon at dip.ee.uct.ac.za

Hi Leon

I had a similar problem with Debian Linux 2.0 some time ago. It seems from the
output of ldd that there are two separate issues. First you need to load the
library libcurses to somewhere where the system can find it. You probably have
libncurses installed as RedHat 5.x is a newer distro. This works OK if you
compile GRASS against it on your own system, but if you use the binary package
off the website, you must use libcurses.so.1. I think this is included as a
tarball in the package under .../grass42/lib. If not it should be available
from the website.

Then the libc issue. Newer distros, RedHat 5.x, Debian 2.x, Suse 6 use
libc.so.6 (AKA glibc 2) which is not comaptible with libc.so.5. But they come
with libc5 compatible libraries. You probably just don't have the old library
compatible packages loaded. With Debian I need to load libc.so.5 and at least
libX11.so.6 and libXpm.so.x that have been built with libc5, RedHat probably
has similar packages. Check the info in GLINT about libc5 compatibility.

Hope this helps

Dave