Older versions of *libc*

[rgchris]

One web host I use uses libc version 2.28. Is there a way to build for that version, or do I need to wait for an upgrade? (using prebuilt binaries, I get an error saying I need version 2.29).

[Oldes]

Current release builds are done using Github actions. I don't lnow right now what is the lowest unix version available.

But it should be easy to setup a Docker image ti make the build on the right system.
Like here: https://github.com/Oldes/Rebol-Docker

What distro do you use?

My plan is to provide nightly automated builds. But it is not on top of my todo list yet.

[acook]

You may be able to use a C cross-compiler like that provided with Zig, and having downloaded the desired version of libc, specify it in the compiler flags.

[rgchris]

I was just using Base because it's just a little quicker to test 🙂. How might one change the compiler flags? Also, is there an env variable I could set that might affect the operation?

[acook]

Click the that link in my previous comment. It takes you to a post on the Zig site which gives an example for setting the compiler flags to use musl as the libc, you should be able to do something similar for other libcs.

[Oldes]

@rgchris if you mean in the Builder utility, unfortunately not yet. I usually just edit the .nest files. But I agree it is important missing feature. Any proposal how it should work is welcome. Meanwhile I'm working on a simple Rebol/Docker module, which one could easily use for various tasks, like building Rebol from a bootstrap on a concrete distro.

[rgchris]

I have a particular case-use, I'm not sure how essential it is to support it systemically. I guess there's some benefit to supporting old systems (there is nothing quite like booting up a fresh version of Rebol on old, long-forgotten hardware 😊), but that shouldn't come at the cost of concentrating on now and the future.

[Oldes]

Here is very simple Rebol/Docker module and here is bootstrap example how to use it.

Tested on Windows:

[rgchris]

Success! (I had to add --platform "linux/amd64" to flags to get it to work on M1)