Re: Build a portable linux binary?

[CROZIER Richard]

On 19/02/2019 10:23, Tatsuro MATSUOKA wrote:
> --- roland65
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'd like to know if it is possible to build a portable Linux binary, that
>> can be distributed on various Linux distributions, and installed by untaring
>> an archive. In the best case, such a build should include most packages,
>> like in the Windows build.
>>
>> This is the way Firefox, Libreoffice, or even MATLAB are distributed. So,
>> perhaps it's possible to do the same for Octave?
>>
>> Of course, I know that we could have flatpak or snap packages, but there are
>> sand boxes, and as such have issues (permission problems, gui themes, huge
>> size, etc.).
>>
>> So, do you think a portable Linux build can be done?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> RB
>>
>>
>>
> mxe build for linux is one of the candidate.
> I did mxe build for linux on  about two or three years before.
>
> But I do not know its current state.
>
> Tatsuro
>

Here's a link to what Tatsuro is talking about:

https://wiki.octave.org/MXE

Note that this is a fork of the original MXE which you will find elsewhere.

You could perhaps use MXE to do a static build on an old Linux system
(e.g. old ubuntu in a VM). The main issue with portable binaries is
libc, which can't be statically linked which is why you need to build on
a system with an old version of libc, and hope this is ok for all the
new versions of packages downloaded by MXE. The resulting binaries
should work on any system with the same or newer version of libc (I
think?), unless the packages require features not present in that
version of libc.

Richard

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