[SciPy-user] Re: SciPy and I do not like libg2c-pic.a in Mandrake's gcc-2.96 and 3.xx

[Gwenole Beauchesne]

Hi,

> When installing SciPy - a suite of scientific extensions for Python,
> see www.scipy.org - I ran into a problem that I finally traced to
> the requirement of having to link in libg2c-pic.a for dynamically loadable
> libraries.

Any DSO must have PIC code. libg2c.a does not contain PIC code. Thus
introducing libg2c-pic.a before libg2c was finally made shared in gcc3.1.  
You haven't realized that problem yet probably because you were lucky
enough under Linux/x86. This is not true everywhere.

However, if linking with libg2c-pic doesn't help, please let me know.

> The developers of SciPy see this as a "Mandrake idiosyncrasy", and I do
> agree. Looking in the SRPMS of the gcc compilers, I see that libg2c-pic.a is
> new in Mandrake-8.2 and that it exists in gcc-2.96 and 3.0.x.

Those compilers didn't have a shared version of libg2c.

> If not, can you explain why you have introduced libg2c-pic.a and if you
> know of other distro's following the same policy (using an identical name), 
> please tell.

Debian, at least. I used their same naming convention. Otherwise, people 
would be messed up. ;-)

> It will be great if SciPy builds out of the box on future versions of 
> Mandrake!

It will since next version is GCC 3.1 based which provides a shared 
version of libg2c with PIC code.

> PS: Mandrake-8.2 is great -- keep up the good work!

Thanks.

Bye,
Gwenole.