Shared libraries [LWN.net]

Shared libraries

Posted Nov 25, 2025 6:48 UTC (Tue) by koflerdavid (subscriber, #176408)
In reply to: Shared libraries by Cyberax
Parent article: APT Rust requirement raises questions

Is that really such a big issue with existing packaging? Library B should still be resident in memory and therefore Component A will keep running. If Component A is incompatible with the new version of Library B then Component A needs to be updated and restarted as well of course.

Atomic distributions handle this by creating a new file system image in the background, and the user boots into the updated system.

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Shared libraries

Posted Nov 25, 2025 9:06 UTC (Tue) by taladar (subscriber, #68407) [Link] (3 responses)

From practical experience on both my desktop (Gentoo) and various servers (Debian and RHEL) crashes and misbehaving programs due to updated dependencies happen all the time, I encounter one at least 1-2 times a week. Granted, it is not always the library part that is the problem but often files that weren't in memory at all at the time of the update that the library assumes it can load but the end result is the same.

Shared libraries

Posted Nov 25, 2025 14:37 UTC (Tue) by NightMonkey (subscriber, #23051) [Link] (1 responses)

From my experience, Gentoo does a great job of recompiling packages that need shared library updates. :shrug: Perhaps you need to change your upgrading patterns? :)

For example, I use this to upgrade religiously:

emerge -uDNv --with-bdeps y system world --keep-going --jobs --load-average 8

Shared libraries

Posted Nov 26, 2025 9:08 UTC (Wed) by taladar (subscriber, #68407) [Link]

My update command is quite similar only I don't use binary dependencies but what does that have to do with the problem I talked about of programs not being restarted and the distro tools themselves not mentioning the required restart?

Shared libraries

Posted Nov 25, 2025 15:26 UTC (Tue) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]

This is very unusual, otherwise Debian would be flooded by bug reports.