compilation problem in glibc 2.3.2-27.9 RedHat 9

[Simon Marlow]

=20
> recently I've upgraded my RedHat box from 8 to 9. This=20
> immediately gave
> rise to a lot of problem due to incompatibility (I guess).=20
> When I try to
> compile my haskell library, for example (HaXml), it halted with this
> error message
> =20
> =20
> /usr/local/lib/ghc-5.02.3/libHSrts.a(RtsFlags.o)(.text+0x1b0): In
> function `setupRtsFlags':
> : undefined reference to `__ctype_b'
> collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
> =20
> I then try to recompile my ghc from source, the compilation terminates
> with the same error.
> =20
> for which I thought it is due to update on static links from glibc
> version 2.2 to 2.3. But I think this has already been fixed by some
> previous version.=20
> =20
> This problem is resolved until I reverted my glibc package back to
> 2.3.2-4.80

Upgrading libc is not in general a safe thing to do when there are
static libraries built against the old libc on your system.  GHC
includes several such static libraries.  (It still amazes me that most
Linux distributions have a package system with proper dependency
tracking but still upgrade libraries without also upgrading everything
that might have been broken by the upgrade.)

We don't have RedHat 9 RPMs available for GHC 5.04.3 yet, I'm still
hoping some kind person will build some... there is one bug in 5.04.3
that shows up with RedHat 9, but a fix was circulated on the bugs list
recently.

Cheers,
	Simon