RE: [ethereal-users] Problems with Ethereal.

["McNutt, Justin M." <McNuttJ@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I now infer from "libc.so.6 (glibc)" that you're running 
> Linux, and that
> from "downloaded the .tar.gz binaries" and "which I have yet to get
> installed" that you're probably running a pre-glibc version of
> Slackware.

Yes.  It came with kernel v2.0.36, if I recall correctly.  I have been doing
a lot of compiling and upgrading lately.  <grin>

> The Package Central entry for Ethereal doesn't say for which 
> version of
> Slackware the package was built; I have the impression that glibc is a
> relatively recent addition to Slackware, so I'm a bit 
> surprised that the
> package would be built with glibc.

If Slackware 6.0 is the latest (as you mention below), I probably just have
a fairly old version.

> > I'm going to struggle with that part.  I got it all 
> compiled once, but then
> > scrapped it because there were warnings on the glibc HOWTO 
> page suggesting
> > that "you don't want glibc-2.1.x as your main library."  Hmmm...
> 
> I have the impression that the major commercial 
> distributions, at least,
> are using 2.1[.x], of some flavor, so perhaps the HOWTO is 
> either out of
> date or excessively conservative.  (Heck, the glibc HOWTO I see on
> "www.linuxdoc.org" has a date of 22 June 1998, and says that 
> 2.1 is "due
> out in the near future".  Perhaps, given that glibc is used 
> by, I think,
> most of the major distributions, the HOWTO for it is no longer
> considered important.)

On that note, I think I'm just going to install glibc-2.1.3 (with the
add-ons) with --prefix=/usr and be done with it.  If it hoses, it hoses.

> Perhaps the version of Slackware (or whatever other Linux distribution
> is on your machine, if it's not Slackware) you have, being 
> libc5-based,
> doesn't have sufficiently up-to-date header files, and thus doesn't
> define INT_MAX, causing the compile problem with the source
> distribution.

Well, I downloaded the latest libc5 (5.4.46 I think?  I'm running Wintendo
at the moment...), so they may all be broken.  Hopefully, libc6 will fix
this problem.

> > But at least I know why Ethereal (and a couple other 
> things) won't run even
> > when the binaries were downloaded.  <whacks forehead>  Grr...
> 
> If you are running an older version of Slackware, you might want to
> consider upgrading to Slackware 6.0, to get a more modern environment.

Nah.  Upgrading the whole distro is no fun.  I'll just get the new stuff I
want.  Every time I've wiped the drive and upgraded the whole thing I get
all kinds of stuff I didn't want and I have to reconfigure everything and
it's just a mess.  I can get glibc going in a few hours (takes a while to
compile on here) and see what's still broken after that.

Thanks for the help!

--J