Howdy folks,
I recently downloaded and compiled 3.8.0-Beta2 with dynamic linking on my
Lubuntu 20.04 box. Then I though, let's try a static build.

Nope. Got this error: cannot compute sizeof (size_t)

A bit more sleuthing turned up ...

I hadn't noticed it but it appears Ubuntu-based distros have removed practically
all their system static .a files but also installed a glibc that only compiles
to dynamic-linked .so builds. To build a static binary, I'd have to do a lot of
work, including compiling the glibc (gcc) compiler itself with --enable-static
invoked. It appears a number of the other dependencies would also need
re-compiling as with static .a libs too.

Wondering if anyone else, perhaps on another distro, has compiled a static
version of 3.8.0-Beta2.

Cheers.

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On 10/6/21 3:48 PM, The Traveler wrote:
> Howdy folks,
> I recently downloaded and compiled 3.8.0-Beta2 with dynamic linking on my
> Lubuntu 20.04 box. Then I though, let's try a static build.
> 
> Nope. Got this error: cannot compute sizeof (size_t)
> 
> A bit more sleuthing turned up ...
> 
> I hadn't noticed it but it appears Ubuntu-based distros have removed practically
> all their system static .a files but also installed a glibc that only compiles
> to dynamic-linked .so builds. To build a static binary, I'd have to do a lot of
> work, including compiling the glibc (gcc) compiler itself with --enable-static
> invoked. It appears a number of the other dependencies would also need
> re-compiling as with static .a libs too.
> 
> Wondering if anyone else, perhaps on another distro, has compiled a static
> version of 3.8.0-Beta2.
> 
> Cheers.
> 
Hi. FWIW.

Not with 3.8.0-Beta2, but I did pay some with LTO, static linking and 
profile guided compiling early this year with my povr branch on my 
Ubuntu 20.04 machine. I never managed to get preview window options to 
statically link (due missing .a archives).

Below the configure command used while linking static for the povr 
branch (povr's configuration set up is different than POV-Ray proper's). 
The v3.8 beta 2 configure options would be somewhat different, but it 
perhaps gives you an idea of what works for a static link.

./configure -q COMPILED_BY="me" CXXFLAGS="-std=c++17 -O3 \
-ffast-math -march=native" LDFLAGS="-s" --with-static-link=\
"-static -Wl,--whole-archive -lpthread -Wl,--no-whole-archive" \
--with-libsdl="no" --with-libsdl2="no" \
--with-x="no" --with-libtiff="no" --with-openexr="no" \
NON_REDISTRIBUTABLE_BUILD=yes --enable-lto

Aside: It looks to me that sometimes the .a archives are not provided 
due security concerns and other times it is due the licensing used for 
one or more parts of any given software package. The tiff libraries, for 
example, are of late defaulted to compression code which requires 
license hooks in anything statically linked with that image library. I 
suspect not providing the .a archives is a way OS distributions can 
avoid being accused of enabling the circumvention of licenses.

Bill P.

Post a reply to this message

William F Pokorny <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> On 10/6/21 3:48 PM, The Traveler wrote:
> > Howdy folks,
> > I recently downloaded and compiled 3.8.0-Beta2 with dynamic linking on my
> > Lubuntu 20.04 box. Then I though, let's try a static build.
> >
> > Nope. Got this error: cannot compute sizeof (size_t)
> >
> > A bit more sleuthing turned up ...
> >
> > I hadn't noticed it but it appears Ubuntu-based distros have removed practically
> > all their system static .a files but also installed a glibc that only compiles
> > to dynamic-linked .so builds. To build a static binary, I'd have to do a lot of
> > work, including compiling the glibc (gcc) compiler itself with --enable-static
> > invoked. It appears a number of the other dependencies would also need
> > re-compiling as with static .a libs too.
> >
> > Wondering if anyone else, perhaps on another distro, has compiled a static
> > version of 3.8.0-Beta2.
> >
> > Cheers.
> >
> Hi. FWIW.
>
> Not with 3.8.0-Beta2, but I did pay some with LTO, static linking and
> profile guided compiling early this year with my povr branch on my
> Ubuntu 20.04 machine. I never managed to get preview window options to
> statically link (due missing .a archives).
>
> Below the configure command used while linking static for the povr
> branch (povr's configuration set up is different than POV-Ray proper's).
> The v3.8 beta 2 configure options would be somewhat different, but it
> perhaps gives you an idea of what works for a static link.
>
> ./configure -q COMPILED_BY="me" CXXFLAGS="-std=c++17 -O3 \
> -ffast-math -march=native" LDFLAGS="-s" --with-static-link=\
> "-static -Wl,--whole-archive -lpthread -Wl,--no-whole-archive" \
> --with-libsdl="no" --with-libsdl2="no" \
> --with-x="no" --with-libtiff="no" --with-openexr="no" \
> NON_REDISTRIBUTABLE_BUILD=yes --enable-lto
>
> Aside: It looks to me that sometimes the .a archives are not provided
> due security concerns and other times it is due the licensing used for
> one or more parts of any given software package. The tiff libraries, for
> example, are of late defaulted to compression code which requires
> license hooks in anything statically linked with that image library. I
> suspect not providing the .a archives is a way OS distributions can
> avoid being accused of enabling the circumvention of licenses.
>
> Bill P.


Hi Bill, Thanks for the info. I think your right about removing the .a libraries
for potential security reasons and licensing issues. I went looking for them to
satisfy static linking against the povray binary and, as far as the Lubuntu
distro goes, they were all missing. I suppose if I got serious about it, I could
download and compile static libraries for them as well. Or make use of your
..../configure example and just cut the imaging out.

I'm not that serious yet. ;)

This whote bit got started with me thinking about how to implement an Eisen
script interpreter inside of Povray ...

Jeff H.

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